Action on climate change is good for our health, good for our wealth, and good for our environment—our life-support system. We are all complicit in the degradation on our once-reliable, stable climate. The climate science is clear. The economic arguments are clear. And the health message is clear: we can all do things that impact—for […]
Category: NHS
Martin McShane: Little things
The reforms grind on. In the stratosphere there is a lot of noise and turbulence—people arguing passionately and polemically. Meanwhile the architecture of a new system is being constructed around those of us working in the old system. People are wondering where their future lies, or if they have a future. The basic construct is […]
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 […]
Edward Davies: This bill is happening. Doctors will need to make it work.
Watching Andrew Lansley at the Nuffield Trust Summit last week was to watch a man surprisingly at ease. The Health Secretary is at the centre of a huge media storm, surrounding an enormously mangled bill, decried by all and sundry in the medical profession and beyond. But he started his talk with a joke, he […]
Peter Bailey: The King’s Shilling
David Cameron and Andrew Lansley assert that a large majority of GPs support their bill. Is it true? Where is the evidence? Is the profession lined up in willing support, eager to take on responsibility for managing the NHS through its greatest crisis? Perhaps we all took the King’s Shilling while in our cups in […]
Martin McShane: Doing the maths
We are now constantly discussing the transition process and the programme of work we have mapped, which we need to follow to deliver the structural changes demanded by the reforms. This sits alongside the planning process, with the plan for 2012/13 shuttling back and forth between the SHA, PCT cluster, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), various […]
John Gabbay: “We’ll never re-elect you if you wreck our NHS”
So why would a retired professor of public health decide to write a protest song, get his kids to help him record it, his wife to help him with the graphics, and take his first plunge into the dangerous world of YouTube? Isn’t this the fellow that usually writes dusty academic works about evidence-based practice? […]
Peter Bailey: Hot frogs jump
Biology A level classes in the 1970s often involved frogs making the ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of their dissector’s knowledge of what lies beneath the amphibian skin. As far as I remember, it was not however common practice to test the widely-held belief that a frog in a water bath would tolerate a slowly […]
Peter Bailey: poisoned chalice
It is now just over three weeks since I saw my last patient, hung up my stethoscope, and retired. A GP with time to think! Just imagine what might happen. Among the first fruits of this contemplation was the personal view of the Health and Social Services Bill that I submitted to the BMJ which […]
Kailash Chand: The e-petition for the NHS passes 153 000 votes
The e-petition calling on the government to drop its Health and Social Care Bill has now reached 153 000 signatures to become the second most popular campaign on Number 10’s official petition site. It already qualified for a debate in the House of Commons, when it passed the 100 000 signatures milestone. Some 90% of […]