CAMHS in Crisis
There’s been more bad news recently about the state of young people’s mental health. One in five 11-15 year-olds in England now report self-harming. The number of people who die by suicide is also increasing, as is the number of...
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A Crisis in GP care: greed, funding or ideology?
Most recent surveys report a GP crisis in the UK. The question is whether this caused by greed, underfunding or the stress of working under an oppositional government ideology
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(Imaginary) healthcare heroes – Ms Conscientious (#2 in an occasional series)
Imagine a paramedic who is a dedicated clinician. Imagine her to be conscientious, caring and skilful. And now imagine that she is so disturbed by the conditions of today’s NHS that she is seriously considering leaving her secure employment as...
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David Cameron, England’s NHS, and the tiger in the bathroom
As it becomes impossible to deny the devastation being wreaked on the National Health Service by 2012’s Health & Social Care Act, who is really pledging to fix it?
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Q: “When is an NHS provider not a qualified provider?” A: “When it’s a willing provider…”
What’s the difference you might ask? Well, here’s the rub, according to the last edition of Private Eye, there isn’t one! December’s edition of Private Eye reported a range of concerns about the regulation and governance of Any Qualified Providers...
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“Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox”: women’s sporting bodies on Screen
Women aged 14 – 40 years are the target of the latest Sport England campaign “This Girl Can”. The campaign is supposed to be breaking new ground in terms of the particular approach it takes to women and sport, but...
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Making space for activity
All doom and gloom about the NHS this week – and I thought we needed some light relief so started with play. In our road we have a street play scheme. As in other places this followed a popular annual...
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The Remploy Saga: the provider state isn’t providing and the enabling state doesn’t enable.
I saw Government Minister Mark Harper interviewed on my local television news the other day (BBC Look East, Jan. 12th 2015). He was talking about how, in his opinion, the closure of the last publicly owned Remploy factories was, somewhat...
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2015: Time for politicians to make a healthy New Year’s resolution
It’s that time of year. Millions of British people resolve to change. Quit smoking. Eat better. Exercise more. Drink less. Breaking a New Year’s resolution is as much a British tradition as making one though. So what can we learn...
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Highlights of 2014
Dear Readers, Thanks for reading our posts and for following us on twitter. Also thanks to the many guest authors who have blogged for us over the last year. We hope you all have a merry break and a very...
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Children in Need of Charity?
Each year the country comes together in mass acts of philanthropy, raising money in all kinds of inventive, extraordinary and impressive ways to help children who are less fortunate than they are. Each year a significant amount of money is...
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Money, Death, Pain and Politics