The number of computer programs that promise to sharpen, train and preserve brain function seem to be proliferating. There has been a lot of press coverage about a paper in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia . The authors reviewed all the evidence available on interventions aimed at preserving cognitive function in healthy elderly people. Just as I […]
Continue Reading →How much for a shift?
There have been stories recently about how much the NHS are paying agency staff to work shifts. These kind of locum shifts are usually contracted at short notice or include unsocial hours. But it’s madness – £188 for an hour’s work? I have heard worse recently: a GP paid £200 an hour for working at New Year, […]
Continue Reading →Sir Richard Branson: curious ‘science’ and unfair analogies
Sir Richard recently gave an interview to the BBC when he said, amongst other things, that the healthcare industry could learn from the airline industry; and that all healthcare workers should be screened for MRSA and treated for it because it “is far better than having people dying from unnecessary diseases, and all the misery […]
Continue Reading →Pitfalls of a health column
When I suggested, a while back, that walking was fabulous for health, I thought I was giving readers of this column sound advice. All the evidence suggests that it’s good for mental, physical and environmental health, as well as being something many people find pleasurable. Who, I thought, could object? Well, the man who wrote […]
Continue Reading →Should the NHS underwrite cosmetic surgery done abroad?
The British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons have issued the results of a questionnaire asking surgeons if they have had to give emergency treatment to people who have had cosmetic surgery abroad. Unsurprisingly, the answer was yes. This is only the tip of an iceberg – there have been reports of patients returning […]
Continue Reading →Breast cancer: to screen or not to screen?
A very interesting paper just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study followed women before and after the introduction of a breast screening programme in Norway. They were compared to a control group of women who did not take part in the screening programme, but who would have been, had the programme been started in […]
Continue Reading →‘Normal’ cholesterol: to treat or not to treat?
Much ado with a new paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine . This study was placebo controlled and focused on treating people with “normal” cholesterol but a high “c-reactive protein” (a marker of inflammation) with rosuvastatin (which is not a new statin as some media outlets have reported, but one already in use). Reports have […]
Continue Reading →The ASA and Lifescan
The Advertising Standards Authority have announced that they are upholding my three complaints against a leaflet about Lifescan. You and Yours are doing a piece about it at noon today. More on this later.
Continue Reading →Lonlieness and social cohesion
Help the Aged have released details of a survey today. They conclude that 1.4m older people in the UK feel socially isolated and that 1.25m are often or always lonely. I am often dubious about the way in which surveys are interpreted. However, the findings of this survey do bear out many of the sadder observations made in general […]
Continue Reading →How should GPs be paid?
The dirty semi-secret that GPs get paid per item of what they do – for example, immunisations, cervical smears, blood pressure checks – has been making me uncomfortable for years. I still do not know what the best way of paying GPs is. The Sunday papers this weekend are full of stories about GPs being paid […]
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