Striking is not integral to any doctor’s identity. As others have pointed out over the last few months, a doctor pledges, before anything to else, to “first do no harm.” However, as doctors we no longer have to decide between amputating a gangrenous limb or leaving a patient to die. Our decision-making is becoming an […]
Chris Ham: The proposed NHS and social care commission should report quickly and engage with staff and the public
After the government’s spending review, the NHS has just over two years at best to stabilise rapidly deteriorating finances and declining standards of patient care. At that point the harsh reality of planned real growth in funding of only 0.2 per cent in 2018/19 (and even less the following year) will have to be confronted. It […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—8 February 2016
NEJM 4 Feb 2016 Vol 374 Renal altruism 411 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Failing that, consider live kidney donation. In fact, the risk of you laying down your life by getting end stage failure of the other kidney is really low, especially […]
Henry Murphy: Resignation to Jeremy
Another blog about the junior doctor’s contract, another march, and another strike. What is left to be said? The argument has been detailed in every way; with eloquence, with anger, with emotional outpourings, and cold hard evidence. Under our belt now are two big marches and one big strike, with the support of two choirs […]
Junior doctors’ strike February 2016: Live blog
This week, junior doctors in England will be taking industrial action for the second time in as many months after failing to reach agreement with the government over their proposed new contract. The strike action will result in junior doctors offering emergency care only for 24 hours from 8am on Wednesday 10 February to 8am […]
Tim Albert: What price a patient’s expertise?
For the last 18 months I have been doing some work as an Expert by Experience for the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Despite the job title—which has the ring of being dreamt up in an over-anxious committee—I found the role fascinating and rewarding. I was delighted that the chronic condition I have suffered from for […]
William Cayley: Complexity and care
Words that sound wonderful can come back to haunt you. As a case in point, I recently responded to Elizabeth Wortley’s eloquent blog “Please refrain from using that kind of language” with the question: What if we decided to try to become “experts” in treating the difficult (patients)? That sounds great in a conversation, but those […]
Deborah Kirkham: Abortion in America—are church and state really separate?
Never talk about religion, politics, or sex the old adage goes. The continuing debate about abortion covers all three, which may go someway to explaining the fervor with which all sides defend their viewpoint. Planned Parenthood in America appears at first glance to be an unremarkable organisation. It offers contraception, testing, and treatment of sexually […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Contemptuous
As I have previously described, delaying tactics in a conflict are known as Fabian tactics, after Quintus Fabius Maximus, who used them against Hannibal’s Carthaginians during the Second Punic War, and earned the nickname Cunctator, the Delayer. The dispute between the government and the junior hospital doctors drags on, and Jeremy Hunt/Cunctator seems to be […]
Richard Smith: Commissioning needs to be about all public services not just health
Parliament has three times relegislated the commissioner provider split—in 1990, 2002, and 2012, said Stephen Dorrell, secretary of state for health from 1995-97, in a talk to the Imperial College Centre for Health Policy this week. Every health secretary for the past 26 years—with the exception of Frank Dobson—has believed in commissioning. But, he asked, […]