The current financial pressures on the public sector and the drive to achieve savings in the NHS are the focus of much debate and speculation at the moment. Of particular concern, though less prominently voiced, in a time of squeezed budgets, is the potential impact of these pressures on some of the more marginalized and […]
Simon Wright: Europe’s development days are not delivering
The European Development Days have become an annual tradition, organised by the European Commission and the governments of Europe, to showcase the way they are supporting developing countries. I attended the first one in 2006 but had not been back until this year. They have certainly grown in size, in profile and the status of […]
Richard Smith: Ten iconoclastic thoughts
Last week I had the privilege of speaking to a learning set of six former NHS managers who have kept up their learning for over 20 years. They have done well. One is in the House of Lords, two are regulators, and one has got rich. What could I say to them, I wondered? I […]
Michael Wilks: the last day of the Cancún conference
The end of any international meeting is always fraught with uncertainty, and compromises are more likely as deadlines loom. On this last full day, Cancún looks like being very difficult to spin other than at a level that takes a deep sigh of relief that any structure exists on which to build further agreements ahead of […]
Domhnall MacAuley: primary care in Brazil
Five of his pregnant patients were dead. Three murdered by drug dealers when they couldn’t pay their bills and two killed by the police. A very different maternal mortality in frontline general practice. Marcello Garcia Kolling, a GP in Curitiba, and president of the 2º Congresso Sul Brasileiro de Medicina de Família e Comunidade, estimates […]
Research highlights – 10 December 2010
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Michael Wilks on the latest from Cancún
As we reach the middle of the second and final week of this COP meeting, positions are beginning to harden, and may well persist into the post-Cancún landscape. Ministers started arriving yesterday and were given a shot in the arm by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In spite of this, the main offenders are being identified […]
Richard Smith: The town that gave up medicine
How would you like to be part of a television programme provisionally entitled “The town that gave up medicine”? The programme will be made by a company called Films of Record , which has an impressive pedigree, and shown on Channel 4. In some ways this is a programme about medicalisation, but you can imagine […]
Anna Dixon: Should clinicians be responsible for the population as well as individuals?
Historically, clinicians have had a strong tradition of connecting the health of the individual in their surgery to the population’s health. Doctors were, for example, active in early campaigns for clear air and clean water. More recently, many doctors have called for a ban on smoking in public places and a reduction of salt in […]
Michael Wilks: Climate change and health – time for a new narrative
The last “COP” (conference of the parties) meeting, in Copenhagen a year ago ended in chaos, mutual distrust, and an agreement on very little. The fact that world leaders are staying away from the next COP, which started in Cancún, Mexico a week ago, may be an advantage. Out of the glare of publicity, and without […]