A Blog About Health In Times Of Austerity

Latest entries
The Last of Us – Review

The Last of Us – Review

I have tried to keep plot spoilers to a minimum, but this review may have a few minor spoilers. Even before COVID struck, people were tired of post-pandemic apocalyptic dramas in film and television. The long-running television series The Walking... More…
ALLERGY… REALLY?

ALLERGY… REALLY?

I took my daughter to the general practice the other day. She has a swelling knee that looks infected. We waited a short time and then we were called in. The doctor examined it and confirmed our fears. He then... More…
Understanding Health Inequalities in Scotland - Getting Beyond Death and Despair in (Quantified) Data

Understanding Health Inequalities in Scotland – Getting Beyond Death and Despair in (Quantified) Data

Two high profile reports on health inequalities in Scotland were launched last month. The first, Leave No One Behind(a Health Foundation report), aimed to provide a multi-dimensional, up-to-date analysis of health inequalities in Scotland. The second, Closing the Gap (from... More…
Lucky strike

Lucky strike

In 1888 the match girls of Bryant and May match factory in London went on strike, after years of discontent and triggered by the unfair dismissal of a worker in the July of that year. Workers were not unionised, employed... More…
Break a leg! Observations on continuity of care

Break a leg! Observations on continuity of care

I’ve been thinking about continuity of care. The advantage of continuity of care was taken for granted in traditional, community based general practice where the family doctor got to know people, in their own context, over time. Seeing the same... More…
Why nurses should be paid the same as neurosurgeons

Why nurses should be paid the same as neurosurgeons

This December, nurses will be striking nationwide for the very first time in UK history. The official campaign is calling for a pay rise of 5% above inflation to ensure nurses no longer have to rely on foodbanks, or make... More…
Scales of failure: mental health services and self-harm

Scales of failure: mental health services and self-harm

Reflections on the CVNI conference and the weight of knowledge I was recently at a two-day meeting of lived-experience experts and service user/survivor researchers in mental health. The event, organised by the Critical Voices Network Ireland was energising, exciting, and... More…
Disease

Disease

If a person died from tuberculosis in the eighteenth century, this might not only be expected but might also be considered unavoidable. But if a person dies from tuberculosis today, is that either expected or unavoidable? We have the means... More…
Where has all the health gone?

Where has all the health gone?

As we sit here in the autumn of 2022, I am struck by the state of health in the UK. Here we are, only 30 months since the first UK national lockdown for COVID, and health and health policy appear... More…
Jeremy Hunt: New chancellor is the man who ruined the NHS

Jeremy Hunt: New chancellor is the man who ruined the NHS

As the former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt is appointed to the Exchequer, his ministerial past puts paid to his ‘sensible’ image Jeremy Hunt has been named the UK’s fourth chancellor in as many months, following the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng... More…
Universal credit changes: increasing pressure on part-time workers is the wrong move at the worst time

Universal credit changes: increasing pressure on part-time workers is the wrong move at the worst time

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has laid out the government’s “mini budget”, a package of tax cuts that will mostly benefit the wealthiest in Britain. But people on the other end of the income scale are facing changes too. Kwarteng announced that... More…
Whose side are we on? Reflections on the FHSI book prize shortlist

Whose side are we on? Reflections on the FHSI book prize shortlist

Four excellent recent books, all shortlisted for the FHSI Book Prize shortlist, illustrate different approaches to the question of who we write for. Howard Becker’s 1967 call for sociologists to be on the ‘side of the underdog’ was not advocating... More…