For too long, we have allowed unnecessary variation to occur in critical processes across the NHS. This is particularly evident in the assessment of patients admitted with emergency conditions, and during communication and handover, as patients commonly traverse multiple healthcare settings. Currently, hospitals across England don’t use a standardised early warning system (EWS) to identify […]
Language matters as a way of respecting women’s views and ensuring that they are empowered to make decisions […]
The Global Fund partnership is an important mechanism for transferring funds from national, multilateral, and private donors to low and middle income countries to assist in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Most of the Global Fund’s contributions come from governments, although there has long been private sector interest in engagement with the Fund […]
A youthful Christine Keeler sits in custody refusing to answer questions, cigarette in hand. Season 2 of Netflix’s The Crown, culminates with the Profumo affair. It is 1963, six years after The Medical Research Council had published a statement announcing “a direct causal connection” between smoking and lung cancer, and that scene sadly foreshadows Keeler’s […]
New to a GP practice, I was recently asked to spend an afternoon with our practice receptionists. I wasn’t sure what to expect. But that day gave me a new understanding of what they really do—and a realisation that it’s one of the hardest jobs in primary care. I must admit I hadn’t given […]
In the battle to retake Mosul, MSF was forced to witness the expendability of human life […]
Historical stereotypes surrounding the disease label “gout” are an important barrier to effective treatment in contemporary practice […]
Richard Lehman reviews the latest research in the top medical journals […]
Is a doctor convicted of gross negligence manslaughter always an unsafe doctor? Who should decide—the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, or the Courts? Recent high profile cases, not least the appeal case involving trainee paediatrician Hadiza Bawa-Garba, have generated much debate about whether the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (The Tribunal), or the Courts, are best placed […]
The Bawa-Garba case shows how outdated medical culture is in a society that won’t face up to the crisis in healthcare […]