So, the tragic story of Charlie Gard, the terminally-ill baby boy whose parents have fought a legal battle to stop doctors at Great Ormond Street in London from turning off his life support, has drawn to a close; his family … Continue reading
The case of Charlie Gard, the baby boy with a mitochondrial disease and allegedly irreparable brain damage whose life support doctors have been trying to turn off as they believe there is no hope of his recovering, has been in … Continue reading
Last Monday I saw an article in the Times in which a woman called Susanne Cameron-Blackie, who it turns out was the writer behind the now-removed Anna Raccoon blog (see earlier entry; she was a great supporter of Mark Neary … Continue reading
Last Friday an inquest jury gave its verdict in the case of Dean Saunders, who killed himself in Chelmsford Prison in January 2016 having been remanded there having injured his father who tried to stop him self-harming during a mental … Continue reading
Earlier today I was browsing the mentions of Kate Granger, the doctor best known for setting up the “Hello, my name is…” campaign aimed at encouraging doctors, nurses and other health professionals to introduce themselves to patients when they meet … Continue reading
A number of years ago I heard a play on Radio 4 whose title I can’t remember but I suspect it was called High Valour. It was about a couple who emigrated to Australia where the husband hoped to work … Continue reading
Sarah Reed told family of alleged sexual assault in hospital, from the Guardian It has been revealed that Sarah Reed, the woman who was found dead in her cell at Holloway Prison in London last month, having supposedly strangled herself, … Continue reading
Back in 2012, I published on this site a manifesto of sorts, calling for healthcare in the UK to be free of fear. Back then I was heavily involved in ME activism and three people with severe ME had died, … Continue reading
The crusade against FGM is out of control - Spectator Blogs Brendan O’Neill wrote the above article on the incident reported recently in the British press, in which Baroness Jenny Tonge took a flight to Addis Ababa that was full … Continue reading
Yesterday the government announced that labels on drugs prescribed by the NHS in England that cost over £20 will have the cost printed on them along with the words “funded by the UK taxpayer”. According to the BBC report, the … Continue reading
Kids in Crisis was a programme about children with severe mental health problems in the UK who are being transferred a long way from home, sometimes hundreds of miles, because there is no inpatient care anywhere near where they live. … Continue reading
NHS staff told to say ‘I am sorry’ to patients for medical blunders | Society | The Guardian Recently the health blogosphere and Twitter has been buzzing with talk of NHS managers’ and other public health and social care bureaucrats’ … Continue reading
So, last night Newsnight did a feature (34min in) on the ongoing ‘effort’ to get people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour out of assessment and treatment units (ATUs), more than two years after their colleagues at Panorama exposed the … Continue reading
Recently, two people I know (or knew) on Twitter posted threats to kill themselves. One of them is a woman who has bipolar disorder and has been in hospital on several occasions recently; the other has a chronic, disabling condition … Continue reading
Today the report into the death (PDF) of Connor Sparrowhawk, an 18-year-old who drowned in an NHS learning disability unit in Oxford last July (see earlier entry), was published. That it was published was thanks to a long campaign by … Continue reading
Update 5:43pm: The report is out. My response is scheduled for publication at 6:30pm GMT. Southern Health: report publication update Southern Health, the NHS trust responsible for the death of Connor Sparrowhawk in one of its units in Oxford last … Continue reading
It was reported today that there has been a rise in the number of teenagers under 18 admitted to adult psychiatric wards, and that these were sometimes hundreds of miles from home and often proved to be highly unsuitable places … Continue reading
This morning I went for my latest blood test, which I have to have roughly every six months or a year — I can’t even remember as I have so many of them — because of my thyroid condition (which … Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago, a Care Quality Commission report was published that revealed that two NHS units for people with learning disabilities on the same site in Oxford were dreadful — they failed on every area of assessment, including … Continue reading
Carers and care workers are the best kind of people. So why are they treated so disgracefully? Yesterday the Guardian published the above article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, best known for co-founding Vagenda magazine and for a column in the … Continue reading