Know-nothing managers, uncaring carers
Last week there was a report (here in PDF and .docx formats) published by the National Survivor User Network, a mental health advocacy group run by people currently in or who have experience of...
Category: Health
Who really “hates the NHS”?
Yesterday (Saturday) I saw, on the front page of the BBC’s News app, an article by Laura Kuenssberg titled “Like it or hate it, the NHS is here to stay”. Kuenssberg is a BBC...
Why are children in care being sent miles from home?
In today’s Observer, there is an investigation into children in care in England being sent sometimes hundreds of miles from home for lack of care placements in their home areas; they note that children...
This scandal has already broken
“It’s a massive scandal just waiting to break” (Morning Star, 6th Jan 2022) This article, by the feminist writer “Dr EM”, most of whose articles are on fringe feminist websites, attempts to expose the...
The NHS versus the Trusts
Yesterday Channel 4 broadcast a Dispatches programme presented by Matthew Syed (a long-standing writer for the Times newspaper) titled Clapped Out: Is the NHS Broken?, on the failings of the NHS and whether it...
On imposing medical treatment without consent
The other day the Muslim scholar and blogger Musa Furber published a brief article on his blog answering claims from some Muslims that Muslim authorities do not have the right to impose medical treatment...
Bread with few roses, as the government push us back to work
Yesterday a draft of the government’s guidance for “getting Britain back to work” was obtained by BuzzFeed: seven documents giving various advice for how companies might minimise the risk for staff coming back to...
Putting the NHS on a pedestal
Last night, for the third Thursday night in a row, people came out of their front doors to clap in support of NHS workers and carers. For the first time, as far as I...
Why are St Andrew’s passing the buck?
Yesterday it was reported that Katie Fisher, the chief executive of St Andrew’s Healthcare, a charity which runs four hospitals including a large psychiatric institution in Northampton, had “spoken out” after an internal review...
On responding to anti-vaxxers
Today I saw two new articles on the issue of the measles epidemic in the USA which has been caused by the failure of parents, under the influence of anti-vaccine pseudo-science and ideology which...
What ‘lessons’ will be learned from the Amy el-Keria case?
Yesterday the Priory Group, which owns a number of private mental-health units in the UK which treat patients on contracts from the NHS as well as their ‘flagship’ private unit in Roehampton, was fined...
Claire Greaves inquest
Yesterday the inquest into the death of Claire Greaves, who took her own life on a Cygnet-run eating disorder in Coventry in February 2018, concluded and recorded an open verdict (i.e. it was not...
Brexit is a matter of life or death
After my last-but-one post about the behaviour of Corbyn supporters on social media, a long-standing friend cut contact with me as I explained in my previous entry, and I had another exchange with the...
Do we need “a debate on mental health”?
This is a claim I have seen being made in the media on a fairly regular basis. Usually it’s about general mental health issues, and often includes a strong element of blame towards those...
Why the Daily Mail’s “volunteer army” should be resisted
Today, the *Daily Mail* launched a campaign to recruit a “volunteer army” to “help” the NHS starting next Spring, in conjunction with a “new social movement called Helpforce”. The roles that volunteers are expected...
Transforming care? More like history repeating itself
Last night BBC’s File on 4 programme was dedicated to how well the government’s declared intention to get people with learning disabilities out of short-term mental health care and into the community where they...
On mental health care and staying connected
A few years ago I wrote a post on here ([The Importance of Staying Connected](https://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/mt.php/2012/10/25/the-importance-of-staying-connected)) about how the Internet had changed from being a niche service which few people outside academia had access to,...
NHS deaths and “blame culture”
Last week a report was published by the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS), commissioned by the NHS Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, about the death of Nico Reed (right), a young man who...
Why is Quilliam pamphleteering about FGM?
Last week Quilliam, the self-styled counter-extremism think-tank set up by former member of Hizb-ut-Tahreer Maajid Nawaz, released a pamphlet on FGM written by one Muna Adil, complete with a foreword by Ayaan Hirsi Ali,...
No, this treatment won’t save Demi’s life
This morning I came across an appeal to raise money to help an 11-year-old British girl, Demi Knight, to receive ‘treatment’ for her cancer in Houston, Texas, from a guy called Stanyslaw Burzynski at...