What exactly are “seven day services?” This is something that I have been wondering ever since David Cameron announced in March that the NHS would run a seven day service by 2020. And, despite all the rhetoric from Cameron and health secretary Jeremy Hunt, the government doesn’t seem to have a clear definition of what […]
Charles Gore: Making the elimination of viral hepatitis a reality
Currently 400 million people worldwide are living with either hepatitis B or hepatitis C, with no country being left unaffected. For far too long we have allowed 1.4 million people to die every year. For far too long these deaths have been preventable. So for these reasons the World Hepatitis Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) […]
The BMJ Today: Online medical records, confusing mortality figures, and deciding not to quit
• Patients promised online access to their medical records by 2018 Today, The BMJ carries the news that England’s health secretary Jeremy Hunt has pledged that all patients in England will be able to access and input into their own medical records from any location in the country by 2018. As part of an ambitious […]
Simon Nicholas Williams: Big Food could take the fizz out of Jamie Oliver’s soft drink tax
In his new documentary, Sugar Rush [airing tonight], Jamie Oliver pledges to “be a pain in the arse to the government” on the issue of soft drink taxes. Unfortunately for Oliver, and for the health of those he seeks to help, compared to the enormous political influence the food and beverage industry can and will […]
The BMJ Today: Where now for seven day services?
• What next for contract negotiations? As the deadline by which health secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) said he would impose new contracts on junior doctors and consultants approaches, Abi Rimmer and Ingrid Torjesen asked a range of consultants, trainees, trust medical directors, and negotiators what should happen next. […]
A patient’s perspective: Dancing the dance
If I don’t dance to the tune of the care system I don’t get the care I need to survive. I need medicines and other stuff to live well, in fact to stay alive. You, the nurse or the doctor, are the only ones who can give me those things; so I play your game. […]
Richard Smith: The NHS needs existential psychotherapists

Existential psychotherapists help people with the existential, eternal, unsettling, and human problems of meaninglessness, isolation, and the terror of death. These are problems that are causing much suffering in Britain and yet do not respond to the drugs that are the standby of the NHS. That’s why the NHS needs existential psychotherapists. It may have […]
Billy Boland: Playing the long game
I was struck by a pang of existential angst the other day when I was out for dinner with some consultant friends. They were chatting about their impending retirement and their hopes for life after the NHS. I got to jape that it was alright for them, some of us would still be working for […]
The BMJ Today: Prescribing predicaments
• Concern over inappropriate use of psychotropic drugs in people with intellectual disability The proportion of people with intellectual disability in the UK who have been treated with psychotropic drugs far exceeds the proportion with recorded mental illness, finds this study. Of the 9135 participants treated with antipsychotic drugs by the end of the study […]
David Payne: Can higher education help protect against dementia?
In 2001 Tony Blair’s bid for a second term as UK prime minister included a pledge to make “education, education, education” top priority for the Labour party, with a follow up target to get 50% of students entering higher education. Critics of Labour dismissed the figure as arbitrary and meaningless. But might the policy help protect some people from […]