Today GPs are no good at diagnosing dementia. Clare Gerada did good work on You and Yours today discussing a paper just out from Leicester University. The press release says that “general practitioners (GPs) are struggling to correctly identify people in the early stages of dementia resulting in both missed cases (false negatives) and misidentifications […]
Continue Reading →Libel debate in Prometheus
A series of articles about the dreadful state of Libel Law in the UK. Lots to read: Peter Wilmshurst, John Garrow, me, David Colquhoun. Free to access till end of September.
Continue Reading →Older people and alcohol: Royal College of Psychiatrists gets screening wrong
Much ado about the RCPsych report out today on ‘Our invisible addicts’; supposedly, older people addicted to drugs or alcohol. I don’t think this is a new concern. Part of the ‘problem’ is that the care of people with addictions has slowly got better and people are living longer. Northern Doctor has written very well […]
Continue Reading →Easy NHS reforms of evidence lacking and expensive healthcare items
Hospital food initiatives Choose and Book Connecting for Health / National Programme for IT http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=17511 Wash your hands campaigns, and associated badges, cut out cardboard nurses, nurses carrying clipboards to see if you washed your hands Management consultants Walk in centres ISTCs and take or pay contracts 4hour waits and associated management to enforce Homeopathic hospitals […]
Continue Reading →The Home Office, ‘Prevent’ and doctor/patient confidentiality
How I wish that politicians would stop telling doctors how to professionally behave. While we are much vexed about the Health Bill (how can there be a “u-turn” until commissioning is fully stopped?) the Home Office have put out their review of the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. I worry that the authors understand what doctors do, why they […]
Continue Reading →Tell Panorama why the health reforms are so bad
Gerry Robinson is making a programme about the proposed reforms. Panorama have said that they want to include as many GPs as possible giving their views. I have given mine (as Scottish GP looking on with alarm and horror.) Please join me. http://tinyurl.com/66ty56p
Continue Reading →Panorama and care homes
I couldn’t watch this programme. The abuse was horrific. If you don’t know already, it was about physical and emotional abuse delivered by ‘care’ staff in a private hospital to patients with complex learning disability and mental health problems. Question Time just now is going on about private vs NHS care services. There is no […]
Continue Reading →Further privatisation is inevitable under the proposed NHS reforms
Clive Peedells’ excellent article in the BMJ: he’s right.
Continue Reading →This week: what GPs don’t know about asthma
In the BMJ: Recent headlines about general practitioners’ poor knowledge of asthma reflect flawed surveys, writes Margaret McCartney Are general practitioners no good at treating asthma? “GPs poor asthma training ‘risks lives,’” said the Independent recently, sternly warning that “Asthma UK says a survey found that 47% of GPs admit that their own knowledge about […]
Continue Reading →NHS reforms at the Guardian
reply below I wouldn’t argue – at all – that patient groups can be very useful for people and carers for many reasons. Patient groups, formal or informal, have been going on for years, and many people find them useful – many doctors find them useful as a resource for patients. But there are real […]
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