The cost of breathing
Breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…breathe out and repeat. Every second, of every minute, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, for the rest of your life. It’s a simple concept, and most of us take it...
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Disinformation, vested interest and the campaign against vegan diets
It has become a favourite pastime of the right-wing press to criticise vegan diets and revel in the perceived decline of veganism. Almost every week, there will be stories of the decline in sales of meat substitutes or the closure...
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What’s CAG got to do with it? Reflections on the Confidentiality Advisory Group
A feature of the NHS research ethics approval process is the Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG). For those unfamiliar with CAG, it is a specialised independent body that provides expert advice to the Health Research Authority (HRA) for research use of...
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Creating a surplus
I write this as someone who is interested in American healthcare. Not from the perspective of health systems or processes, but from an ideological perspective; one which considers how healthcare is delivered and managed in the context of an expressly...
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On the inequalities of dying – and passing
Death is, supposedly, the ultimate equalizer: we all die. Yet when and how we die, and the social consequences of our deaths, remain deeply inequitable. Does insisting on abandoning our metaphors for death risk obscuring these sociological truths? Metaphors such...
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Are you happy now?
This post is a companion piece to Déjà vu in UK Welfare Benefit Reform which ran last week in response to government cuts to welfare benefits According to the 2025 World Happiness Report, the UK has taken a significant dip—now...
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Déjà vu in UK Welfare Benefit Reform
On April 6th, 2016 – nearly a decade ago – I wrote a Cost of Living blog that discussed welfare benefit cuts from the then Conservative government. In the blog post I argued, as many have, that cuts to welfare benefits,...
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An epidemic of poor work-related health may be upon us
Sergey Brin, Google’s CEO, has reportedly encouraged his employees to commit to 60-hour work weeks, expecting them to be in the office every weekday—heavily implying that weekends might no longer be sacred. Similarly, James Watt, founder of the craft beer...
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Minimum alcohol pricing: what we found in Wales after five years
Almost five years ago, a new law came into force in Wales making it illegal to sell alcohol for less than 50p per unit. Since its introduction, we have been evaluating the effects of minimum alcohol pricing and our findings...
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The Research Excellence Framework (REF) in times of a shrinking higher education sector
UK Higher Education is “shrinking” with 87 universities currently thought to have active redundancy and/or restructuring schemes in place. The Research Excellence Framework (REF) project proceeds regardless. The previous REF (REF2021) is estimated to have cost £471 million and is...
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Proposals to regulate NHS Managers: a consultation
“Ultimately a regulation is a signal of design failure . . .” William McDonough The default response by government and commentators to scandals, inquiries, and other problems within the NHS is almost universally to demand more or tougher “regulation,” and...
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Making Meaning, Creating Care: Mad Zines and Self-Harm