Will the Big Society, GP commissioning, and a major reorganisation help or hinder the NHS in making 4% efficiency savings compound over four years? This was the question that kept running through my mind as I listened to a discussion at the King’s Fund on whether the current health reforms amount to “patient power or […]
Like it or loathe it, practice will never be the same. Constant data audit, screen reminders, and intrusive disease monitoring protocols have, undoubtedly, altered the consultation but, the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) has, I believe, improved my clinical care. At a recent meeting at the Centre of Excellence for Public Health, Northern Ireland, Martin […]
An occupational hazard of being a geriatrician is that not infrequently I am asked at social occasions: “So, Des, when do you become ‘old’?” The questioner is usually a fit middle-class older person, often still working in one of the liberal professions. Inherent in the question is the sense of an impending instant rebuttal should […]
We are here in a remote mountainous village in Yunnan to understand more about what happens when a baby or young child gets sick. We already know too many die from illnesses that could be prevented or easily treated. […]
This is one of the busiest times of the year for the PCT. We have a tight timetable to assemble a plan and start contract negotiations. Soon we will be given an operating framework. We are given a lot of central direction and this year part of that is called QIPP; we have to have […]
JAMA 1 Dec 2010 Vol 304 Eicosapentaenoic acid – which one is that? That’s right, the fishy one: all that spelling homework I made you do is paying off. More accurately, it is the omega-3 fatty acid that fish get from eating algae and deposit as liquid fat. And docosahexaenoic acid? The same again: only […]
“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. […]
This week, thanks to a pledge of £30K from the dance floor company British Harlequin, Dance UK’s dream of establishing a UK National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science chasséd a little closer towards becoming a reality. Two years ago Dance UK, along with Laban, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Jerwood Centre for the Prevention and Treatment […]
Plagiarism is an emotive topic that rears a rather uncomfortable head in the world of academia. It is, however, an act of fraud which has been part of the world of arts for many years. There is no legal definition of plagiarism. Indeed it is not a legal term but it is one that the […]
I was in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recently and met a young man, Jean Claude (not his real name), aged 17, who is living with HIV. We are starting a new programme in the DRC about responding to HIV and I was very keen to have people living with HIV involved right from the […]