Earlier this year we received news of a social enterprise, Neighbourhood Midwives, providing midwifery services in the community in London, and a private company providing midwifery services for NHS Wirral Primary Care Trust. One to One, in the Wirral, promotes itself as offering the kind of continuity of care in pregnancy and maternity that midwives […]
Category: Guest writers
Richard Vize: Integrate
Integrating care across the NHS and social care holds the promise of giving patients a better service at the same time as cutting costs. But a study for the government of 16 integrated care pilots shows just how difficult it is to do. The dream of happier patients, greater productivity, and lower costs never materialised. […]
Ryuki Kassai: The first anniversary of the Japanese tsunami
According to the plan, we should be well along the path to rebirth, but in reality, foolishness has continued, and nihilism and despair have only spread. Hayao Miyazaki: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1994) (Translated from the Japanese by Matt Thorn) In the afternoon on the 11 March 2012, I was standing on […]
Lord Ashcroft: Anti-NHS Bill candidates would boost the Conservative Party
A group of doctors is threatening to stand candidates at the next general election in revenge for the Health and Social Care Bill. The anti-reform medics plan to target at least 50 senior Liberal Democrats and Conservatives with small majorities, running on what Clive Peedell, co-chair of the NHS Consultants’ Association, describes as “the non-party, […]
Ken Taylor: Why the NHS Health and Social Care Bill is bad for patients
The prime reason that this legislation will prove a disaster for patients is obvious. If you are relying on the NHS for care it is your GP who will be the sole arbiter of the care you receive, and most importantly will control the funding for any referral to secondary care. GPs will not be […]
Ivan Gayton on geeks and primitive fieldworkers: a tale of two cultures
As a project manager for MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders), a medical emergency humanitarian agency, I attended this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, in the company of a friend and collaborator from Google who is involved in crisis mapping. We gave a presentation on some mapping work we had done […]
Michael Dixon: Carpe diem—the politicians have had their day, now it’s time for doctors to seize the initiative
It is all over now. The Health and Social Care Bill has been passed. The politicians have moved on, content to leave professionals and managers to pick up the pieces. Whichever side of this exhausting, divisive, and passionate argument you favoured, we are in a different place now. It is no longer a question of […]
Jeremy Sare on the French drugs model
The prime minister told Parliament last week he was determined to “stamp out” legal highs and new club drugs. There is no hope, however, of halting the inexorable rise in prevalence of these drugs so long as the Home Office holds responsibility for drug policy and so long as the primary response is about enforcement […]
David Payne: Playing the sepsis game
There are 1.1m cases of sepsis each year in the US, costing $17bn to treat and accounting for 17% of hospital mortality. Doctors at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California wanted to help their fellow physicians to recognise and treat it, but instead of producing a paper or video, devised a game. […]
Jonathan Segal: Good will—is it enough to keep the NHS alive?
It is probably evident more than ever, with the recent credit crunch and economic instability, that the NHS has less resources to play with than ever. More jobs have been cut, more training post numbers reduced, and rotas further squeezed. I began to ask myself how are these gaps being filled? I take you back […]