We would like to invite readers of BMJ Blogs to complete a survey about this proposed extension, which is available at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D38NWP3 After an initial survey, we will summarize comments and feedback, and send the survey for a second round of feedback including the ranking of importance of the items. Health inequities are differences in […]
Category: Guest writers
Philippe Chastonnay, Beat Stoll, Bruce Currey: Can donors focus on birth weights after Busan?
The new inclusive “Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation” resulting from the 4th high level forum on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, issued on 1st December does not include children or newborn babies. […]
Jason Strelitz: The fight to end child poverty
Wide gaps in life expectancy in the UK by social background have been widely recognised in recent years. With the current state of the economy, the scaling back of public services, and risks caused by fragmentation of the NHS, the elusive solutions to these complex problems may seem even harder to find. Under the previous […]
Ike Anya: Tackling imported malaria in the UK
It is a typical busy, Thursday afternoon in the office in central London, as I recall the mental note I made to myself earlier that day: ring GP practice to arrange anti-malarial prescription. I am going to Nigeria on Monday and have resolved to make sure that I take my malaria prophylaxis rigorously this time. […]
Ken Taylor: Dr Foster on inpatient hospital mortality
On the Today programme on Radio 4 on Monday morning there was a feature on these recently released data. Two areas were discussed. Hospital mortality is higher out of hours ie nights and weekends. The other item discussed was the smaller number of senior doctors in the hospital out of hours. John Humphrys interviewed a spokesman […]
Martin McShane: Integrated reflections concluded
Here is my third and final blog on the USA trip: After Seattle’s integrated care organisations, we visited CalPERS. They fund $6.7bn worth of healthcare for 1.3 million people (roughly twice what we have per person in Lincolnshire). They see themselves as “active” purchasers: managing the market to reduce costs. About two thirds of their members […]
Johnny Meldrum: The role of health professionals in UN climate change negotiations
As a medical student with the incredible opportunity to represent the voice of health at the UN climate talks in Durban (COP17), the day before my departure I was confronted with the following headline on the front-page of The Guardian: “Rich nations ‘give up’ on new climate treaty until 2020” […]
Kailash Chand: An e-petition for the NHS
This NHS Health and Social Care bill is radically different to any health legislation since the inception of the NHS. It removes the health secretary’s duty to provide or secure the provision of universal healthcare to the general population, and puts in place the legal framework for a commercial system in which the NHS is reduced […]
Tom Yates: Is stoicism an important and neglected confounder?
‘Most doctors and nurses will have a deep well of patient stories – examples of great fortitude and its converse. It is clear to any clinician that some patients either feel their symptoms (or report them) more than others. […]
Desmond O’Neill: One hundred years of flautitude
No geriatrician could pass up on the opportunity: a performance of a flute concerto written by a living composer in his 100th year by one of the greatest orchestras in the world, the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It took place without any formal linkage to the almost 4,000 delegates attending the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) […]