• Updated analysis of weekend hospital admissions Nick Freemantle and colleagues report on an update of their 2010 study of all NHS hospital admissions in England which showed that admission […]
Month: September 2015
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Medical onomatopoeia
Seeking early medical words in the Old English dictionary known as the Epinal glossary, I was not surprised to find that one of the dozen examples I unearthed was onomatopoeic: […]
Abi Rimmer: Seven day services lack definition
What exactly are “seven day services?” This is something that I have been wondering ever since David Cameron announced in March that the NHS would run a seven day service […]
Charles Gore: Making the elimination of viral hepatitis a reality
Currently 400 million people worldwide are living with either hepatitis B or hepatitis C, with no country being left unaffected. For far too long we have allowed 1.4 million people to […]
The BMJ Today: Online medical records, confusing mortality figures, and deciding not to quit
• Patients promised online access to their medical records by 2018 Today, The BMJ carries the news that England’s health secretary Jeremy Hunt has pledged that all patients in England […]
Simon Nicholas Williams: Big Food could take the fizz out of Jamie Oliver’s soft drink tax
In his new documentary, Sugar Rush [airing tonight], Jamie Oliver pledges to “be a pain in the arse to the government” on the issue of soft drink taxes. Unfortunately for […]
The BMJ Today: Where now for seven day services?
• What next for contract negotiations? As the deadline by which health secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) said he would impose new contracts on junior doctors and consultants approaches, Abi Rimmer […]
A patient’s perspective: Dancing the dance
If I don’t dance to the tune of the care system I don’t get the care I need to survive. I need medicines and other stuff to live well, in […]
Richard Smith: The NHS needs existential psychotherapists
Existential psychotherapists help people with the existential, eternal, unsettling, and human problems of meaninglessness, isolation, and the terror of death. These are problems that are causing much suffering in Britain […]
Billy Boland: Playing the long game
I was struck by a pang of existential angst the other day when I was out for dinner with some consultant friends. They were chatting about their impending retirement and […]