Spending more and more on hospital care, means that you “crowd out” spending on other activities that do much for health, says Richard Smith. […]
Richard Smith: The ways in which hospitals can destroy health
Category: Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 9: Information technology—from black hole to the best in Scotland
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. When I visited Dumfries and Galloway in 1999, information technology was described as “a black hole.” The hospital didn’t have electronic […]
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 8—Mental health services
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. When I first visited Dumfries in 1980 the Crichton Royal, a psychiatric hospital, had extensive grounds and multiple buildings, including a […]
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 7—Services in Stranraer are still presenting difficulties
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. It is never going to be easy to provide health services in a small town that is 73 miles by a […]
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 6—developing change locally
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. Annan is the third biggest town in Dumfries and Galloway, in the East of the Region, and so the least remote. […]
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 5—The new hospital of 2017 replaces the new one of 1975
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. When I first visited Dumfries in 1980, the new hospital was only five years old. I enthused over it, but now […]
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 4: Community hospitals—loved by locals but seen as expensive by the authorities
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. There are nine community hospitals across Dumfries and Galloway, and I visited the one in Kirkudbright, which is GP led. The […]
Richard Smith: Time for pharmaceutical companies to help improve the publishing of science
There’s a growing consensus that publishing science through journals is a broken system. But who has the power to change it? Those who fund research have most power, which includes pharmaceutical companies. So far they have not exercised this power, but should they? A meeting in London last week organised by Oxford PharmaGenesis addressed this […]
Richard Smith: How do you produce social determinants that promote rather than undermine health?
Health, as we all know but are inclined to forget, is driven not by healthcare but by social determinants. But how do you produce social determinants that promote rather than undermine health? Political action is one way, but another is to strengthen communities. Jennifer Miller, chief executive of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, described […]
Richard Smith: Dumfries and Galloway NHS 3: Accident and Emergency—meeting targets but “hand to mouth”
Richard Smith visited and wrote about the NHS in Dumfries and Galloway in 1980, 1990, and 1999, and this series of blogs describes what he found in 2016. A feature article provides a summary. Accident and emergency is a pressure point in many hospitals with rising attendances leading to failure to meet the four-hour target […]