The NHS’s critical problem today is not that things are bad, it is that they are getting much worse at a very fast rate across the board. In 40 years involvement […]
Month: December 2016
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: Explosion? Usually barely a puff
There are about 10000 explosions in PubMed®. There are dust explosions, gas explosions, explosion injuries. In the last year, there have been 11 reports of electronic cigarette explosions. As I […]
Nick Hopkinson on Steve Biko, the NHS, and the mind of the oppressed
It would have been Steve Biko’s seventieth birthday this weekend. The anti-apartheid leader was beaten to death by the South African Police in a jail cell in 1977. His death […]
Kushal Patel: Pay inequity spells a winter of discontent for junior doctors
This past year has been particularly turbulent for junior doctors nationwide. Mired in a public standoff with the government and with lacklustre stop-start plans for industrial action, it has rendered […]
Tessa Richards: Patients combat corruption in healthcare
Corruption in health systems has been described as “one of the biggest open sores in medicine.” It occurs in many guises and all countries. Patients may be unaware of the price […]
Sian M Griffiths: £1 housing scheme helps tackle health inequalities
Good housing is a prerequisite for good health. When he was constructing the welfare state, William Beveridge named squalor—which he said resulted from a shortage of good houses—as one of […]
BMJ Christmas charity appeal: Bridging the gap in avoidable blindness
Tsenduren lives a nomadic life in Mongolia. He thought he was in his 70s and arrived at the Orbis Flying Eye hospital in his traditional clothes, having never visited the […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—19 December 2016
NEJM 8-15 Dec 2016 Vol 375 Geographical variation in trials This review article on geographical subgroup variation is a master class in how to think about and analyze randomised controlled trials. […]
Jarron Saint Onge: US ban on smoking in public housing—policymakers must take into account the potential to harm
When the US Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) recently announced it will require all public housing developments in the US to go smoke free, federal officials were correct to […]
Saffron Cordery: Reasons for winter pressures—flying under the radar
For your average Joe Blow it must be hard to work out why, every winter, there is such a commotion about pressures in the health service and particularly in A&E. […]