Representations of mental illness are traditionally menaced by two kinds of distortion, distortions that seem to pull in opposing directions. The first, and far the most common, is that the mentally ill are asocial, chaotic and violent, their ungoverned minds unfitting them for ordinary human civility, their dangerous impulses requiring surveillance, confinement and control. more…

What is the definition of a saint? Someone who doesn’t enjoy the downfall of a banker. I know it’s not a new joke – in the original it is the downfall of a best friend, which cuts a little nearer to home – but it seems to survive the retelling. Of late I have had an occasion or two to take the temperature of my own soul in this respect, and, at best, it’s luke warm. more…

Naomi Campbell is more often associated with toppling heels and fashion-pack tantrums than fundamental clashes in human rights, but as we all know, in our celebrity-strewn culture, fame can be a lightning rod, drawing down great matters on otherwise unremarkable souls. While there may be more moving sights than the gyrations of exposure-hungry models seeking to be rescued from the limelight they have craved, Ms Campbell’s legal spat with the UK’s Mirror Group shed light on a fascinating clash of interests, a clash of interests that permeates contemporary life: exactly where does the limit between a private life and the public interest lie? more…

Once upon a long time ago I worked for a small charity that was much concerned with the plight of indigenous peoples. My role in the cause was a small one - it was a summer job photocopying press cuttings and grant applications in a pleasant, high-ceilinged room in a large house in West London - but nonetheless enjoyable. It helped, I think, that I was the only man, and that the rest of the team were intelligent and passionate women, devoted to the betterment of humankind. more…

The Coroners and Justice Bill is currently in Committee stage in the UK House of Commons. Section 152 of the Bill amends the Data Protection Act. It gives ministers of state the power to enable the sharing of any data that falls within their sphere of responsibility. It defines data sharing as both “the disclosure of data between two or more persons,” and “the use of data for a purpose other than that which it was originally intended.”

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It is fairly widely accepted that medicine is both a science and an art, that it lays claim to a rigorous evidence-based method, while recognising the impact of irreducibly human capacities on healing, capacities like emotion and belief that do not fit easily into a world of verifiability and fact. As a science it aspires to neutrality and objectivity, bringing the same unruffled gaze to illness that astronomers bring to distant supernovae: here, arguably, curiosity is the only legitimate emotion. more…

Last week I was in Uganda, speaking at a conference on monitoring the right to health. During the conference I met a fourth year medical student from Zimbabwe, Norman Matara. Norman is a tall, slim, gentle, slightly stooped young man. He does not talk much, but when he does he is thoughtful and softly spoken. He will say a few words, then lapse back into introspective silence. Although he is young, when he is not smiling his forehead creases easily with anxiety. Norman wants to be a paediatrician. more…

One evening last week I found myself alone in the restaurant of a large golfing hotel in a remote corner of Essex. Probably because it happens so infrequently, I quite like having dinner on my own, even in a large golfing hotel. It means I get to read while I eat, something I am not allowed to do at home as my wife, quite rightly, considers it ill-mannered. Anyway, having finished my book I started to read the menu. It was a fairly unremarkable menu – modern European – but at the bottom, in small print, was the apparently innocuous statement. more…

I have recently been reading a report on ethical issues in public health from the Nuffield Foundation on Bioethics. It is a lovely document, subtle and interrogative, delightfully rich, as all good thought should be, in unanswered questions. more…

Every so often a story comes along that unexpectedly sheds light on a far more widely shared unease. Top-up payments is one of those stories. For many years we have lived, more or less happily, with a simultaneous headline commitment to an NHS that is free to all on the basis of need, an implicit recognition that rationing of health care resources in some form is necessary, and a drive to make the NHS more responsive to consumer choice.

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