Things that don’t mean optional
Earlier last week (before the story about the multiple rapist John Worboys being released from prison) the news was dominated by two stories, one about health and one about transport. The first was that...
Category: Health
Look after your health, and fight for your healthcare
Earlier today Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner who was choked to death by New York police for illegally selling cigarettes in 2014 (one of a series of unarmed Black Americans, mostly men,...
The authority fallacy and the “7-day NHS”
Earlier today, the health minister Jeremy Hunt posted some tweets claiming that Professor Stephen Hawking was wrong in his assessment of the data regarding the “weekend effect” (the notion that people admitted to hospital...
Charlie Gard and NHS versus private care
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...
Charlie Gard: What if they’re just wrong?
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...
NHS compensation is rightful and necessary
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...
Why couldn’t Dean Saunders get a secure hospital place?
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...
Apricot kernels
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...
High Valour?
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...
Why was Sarah Reed in prison, not hospital?
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...
Fear-free healthcare, revisited
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...
Anti-FGM crusade brings out the busybodies
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...
Price tags on medication: why it’s a stupid, callous idea
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”....
Review: Kids in Crisis
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...
Who’s sorry?
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...
LB on Newsnight while BBC plugs Southern Health unit
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...
Online friends, suicide and threats thereof
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...
“Let it not be about lessons learned”
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...
“Awaiting final written permission” (updated)
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...
Rise in teens admitted to adult psych wards
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...