It’s the conference season and I seem to have ended up talking a lot with doctors about multimorbidity and polypharmacy. There’s pretty much universal agreement that there is too much […]
Neal Maskrey
Neal Maskrey: What will replace QOF?
The 2004 UK GP contract contained the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), the boldest pay for performance scheme in healthcare ever attempted anywhere in the world. Eleven years on and […]
Neal Maskrey: Words matter
Me and mine all like Claire. She’s talented, works hard, and recently took a big chance going self-employed. It seems to be paying off. We chatted about her imminent holiday, […]
Neal Maskrey: Treating the patient and not the disease
It was the biggest turnout for many a year. In our small coastal town in the north west of England, 5000 of us stood together bare headed for an hour on […]
Neal Maskrey: How do we become an expert?
We humans often use analogies to help us solve problems. From our memory, we identify a problem similar to—but not exactly the same as—the one we are currently faced with, […]
Neal Maskrey: When paradigms shift
When paradigms shift it’s always disconcerting. Thomas Samuel Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962 and it’s become a decisive text on the nature of science. He used […]
Neal Maskrey: Tipping the balance towards individualised care
I don’t really get the horror genre. Even as a young boy, the flaky plots and a world working to different rules than the one I was becoming more familiar […]
Neal Maskrey: Feeling the force of the QOF
It’s the season for graduation ceremonies. Proud parents and partners, relieved graduates, and a lump in everyone’s throat as that enormous rite of passage is eased by impressive ceremony, thoughtful […]
Neal Maskrey: The importance of kindness
We seem to have a little hit on our hands. The BMJ published our Analysis article “Evidence based medicine: a movement in crisis?” and within a few days, the social media […]
Neal Maskrey: Seeing the world through a patient’s eyes
Captain Hawkeye Pierce of the 4077th MASH unit is one of the great fictional doctors. Battered by the US army, and brutalised by death and disfigurement in a war far […]