The idea that the UK is a bad place to get treated as cancer seems to have been accepted as truth by certain sections of the media. It just isn’t : I’ve been trying to say so for a while with no success whatsoever. Anyway this editorial in the BMJ looks at the reliablity of […]
Continue Reading →The health care of detained asylum seekers
..is not being adequately met. Here’s an article just out in the BMJ about the situation. This is one situation which I do think would be helped by public pressure….
Continue Reading →Not I, Professor Field
Professor Field, outgoing chair of the college I spend a small fortune to be a member of, the Royal College of GPs, has been on the radio rather a lot today. The news is: he scribed a cross article for the Observer, saying that “…too many of us neglect our health and this is leading […]
Continue Reading →The lack of success of GP commissioning
Just read the CQC report on Take Care Now, the organisation run by a majority of GPs, and which employed a German doctor who killed a patient. Why does the coalition think that more will be better?
Continue Reading →Will GP commissioning help patients get better?
I think not. I’ve spent a bit of time reading the new White Paper and associated fluff, I conclude that there are possibly two good things in it. I’ll get to them. But, oh, the jargon! And the rest of it! What on earth does ‘equity and excellence: liberating the NHS’ actually mean? I’m really […]
Continue Reading →NICE and their astonishing view of the clinical relationship
If you are pregnant, NICE want you to given a carbon monoxide test. This test is to see if you smoke. But look at the flowchart on page 11- you are to have this test even if you say you don’t smoke, and even if you say you do. I don’t think this is conducive […]
Continue Reading →Reneging on medical records
This answer in Hansard seems to suggest that medical records will continue to be uploaded to the NHS Spine unless one opts-out – which does not seem to be consistent with election campaign pledges. Opting out is not the best way to obtain consent, and the need for these records seems to be based in […]
Continue Reading →Private “NHS” provision, continued
Previous post on Clinicenta here: This week the medical newspaper Pulse reports multiple ongoing concerns . I note that one of the major problems is felt to be staff inexperience. Of course, if recruiting on the basis of cost is a factor then this is going to be, too: and when you are in a […]
Continue Reading →Who’d be a guinea pig? : column
To be a “guinea pig” in a clinical trial is not an experience people volunteer for lightly. We need only think of the dramatic side-effects of the so-called Elephant Man drug trial at Northwick Park in 2006 to be reminded that volunteers can end up worse off. In that case, there was financial reward for […]
Continue Reading →Health and holiday housekeeping
I’m taking a couple of weeks off the blog to hide from the heat, the lack of which I usually complain about. In the meantime, two thought-provoking treats: an excellent article on cancer screening – It is not wrong to say no – from Dr Iona Heath, who is the new president of the Royal College of […]
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