A Fortunate Woman. A country doctor’s story
While clearing out her mother’s books in 2020, Polly Morland finds a battered copy of John Berger’s A Fortunate Man stuck at the back of a bookshelf, untouched for some decades. The book offers a poetic description of six weeks... More…
The Launch of the Integrated Care Boards and the dismantling of universal healthcare
On 1st July 2022 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) took over commissioning responsibility for the NHS. This followed the Health and Social Care Act receiving Royal Assent at the end of April and passing in to law. Integrated Care Boards are... More…
How blue are you feeling? The social life of questionnaires in measuring depression
Without tape measures and weighing scales, obesity research might look quite different. We need tape measures and scales to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is an essential variable in epidemiology research concerned with body weight and enables certain statistical... More…
The flailing PM is rewriting history to claim ‘COVID success’.
Boris Johnson looks set to cling to ‘the vaccine rollout’ in an effort to stay afloat. In truth, he failed on COVID. Boris Johnson survived his no-confidence vote – just. But with over 40% of his MPs wanting him out... More…
The unaffordable cost of living
Rishi-eat-out-to-help-out Sunak has been busy recently trying to address the snowballing cost of living crisis faced by millions of UK citizens. He announced new policies to help those who will find the ‘struggle is too hard and the risks too... More…
Un-care-able
Stories of self-harm and the impossibility of care In 1987 renowned psychiatrist Armando Favazza, in his field-defining book on self-injury Bodies Under Siege, declared (with remarkable confidence) that “no one loves self-mutilators” (244). In fairness to Favazza, he makes the... More…
What is a patient?
“Patient-ness” as a resource for neoliberal health systems to administer their own crisis What is a patient? An obvious, intuitive answer is that a patient is a person receiving healthcare. The patient exists as long as medical attention or treatment... More…
It’s time for sociology to take animal health seriously
Why should the sociology of health be concerned with animal health? The sociology of health has helped to develop a better understanding of the ways in which social processes are related to mental and physical health. In the process social... More…
The Long COVID Report
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) report into Long COVID was released about a month ago. One important detail is that of the 14 members of the Group, from many different parties, and from both the House of Commons and Lords,... More…
Cancer during COVID
How our research on antimicrobial resistance & health inequalities became more personal In 2019 I was awarded a Wellcome Trust grant. My project promised to look at the question of inequality and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from different perspectives in the... More…
Child custody, racism, conspiracies and Swedish Social Services
Demonstrations against Swedish Social Services’ treatment of children from immigrant families outside parliament buildings in Stockholm are the visible aspect of a battle that is largely taking place on social media. Some of the demonstrators are parents campaigning to have... More…
Heatwaves are social murder