is here, which is in return a reply to a letter from Dr Cooper saying that doctors seeing people within ATOS centres aren’t really in a ‘normal’ doctor patient relationship. I cut and paste Jane O’Brien, Assistant Director, Standards & Fitness to Practise Directorate General Medical Council, 350 Euston Road, London, NW1 3JN “Edward Cooper is […]
Continue Reading →Invitation – free debate in London
If anyone can give idiot-proof advice as to how to upload a pdf, do let me know. Otherwise here is a cut and paste; it’s a (free!) afternoon of debate about whether or not journalists are bad for health. There may be a point, but for me the bigger issue is that scientists and their […]
Continue Reading →How useful are lifetime risks of disease?
Free access to an article in the BMJ about the hype over ‘1 in 8’ women will get breast cancer, here.
Continue Reading →Care and Compassion
The health Ombudsman has released a report saying that not enough is being done for elderly people in the NHS. The report has been published widely in the UK press, with many opinion pieces resulting from it. It’s a report in that it consists of ten narratives based on ten complaints. To that end, I’m […]
Continue Reading →111 – where’s the evidence?
Calling 111 instead of your GP? New plans say that we will not be allowed to operate our own appointment systems but to have a call centre do it for us. Call centres work to PROTOCOLS. We in our practice work because the receptionists know people who are a bit vulnerable or chronically unwell – […]
Continue Reading →Cancer Research UK and 1 in 8
Radio 4 news: “1 in 8 women will get breast cancer”. It’s based on a press release from Cancer Research UK. And it is not helpful: these are the figures, below, for risk of breast cancer you want to know (from their press release) . At present, the headline figure media outlets are using isn’t helpful, and […]
Continue Reading →Dr Andrew Lansley’s monster
Fantastic editorial in the BMJ. “What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer has got to be: mad. The scale of ambition should ring alarm bells. Sir David […]
Continue Reading →Well enough to work
An article about Atos and their work capability assessments, in the BMJ, here. I am finding, often, a distinct lack of co-operation when it comes to polite and basic questions being asked of companies who are contracted to provide services to the Government. I wanted to know about Atos recruitment, audit and training; they didn’t […]
Continue Reading →Surgery for spectators
There’s a lot of press coverage about a piece by Simon Chapman in the BMJ. He describes a charity auction where one prize was to attend a neurosurgical operation. He thinks it was wrong to do so; so do I. Yet this is the logical outcome of so many voyeristic cameras in the consulting room. […]
Continue Reading →Breast health and 1 in 9 again
There are so many things to say that are wrong about the new Breast Health UK service that I’d need all night to write about them. Let me concentrate on just one thing: no, not their offer to perform breast examination on the asymptomatic woman and then teach them how to do it (although it’s […]
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