Inequality as a test of strength…?
Notions of recovery and resilience are ubiquitous at the moment. Resilience particularly seems to have made the jump from a concept in positive psychology material into a mainstream policy objective ranging across inequality, poverty, and community wellbeing (to name but...
More…
Evidence versus autonomy in TB treatment: a tale of two professions
Today we are used to the idea that medical therapies and interventions are based on some form of evidence about patient outcomes. Indeed the new commissioning processes enshrined in the Health and Social Care Act require NHS commissioners to place...
More…
NHS mid-term review: what have we learned so far?
The King’s Fund this week published a NHS mid-term review of UK health policy under the Coalition government. The report is organised around 8 key themes – Access, Patient Safety, Promoting Health, Managing Long Term Conditions, Clinical Effectiveness, Patient Experience,...
More…
The NHS Constitution: What is it good for?
This week saw the launch of a national consultation aimed at updating the NHS Constitution for England, which was implemented in 2009 under Gordon Brown’s Labour Government. The constitution itself sounds wonderful, apparently it “establishes the principles and values of...
More…
The Privatisation Paradox
Log into twitter and follow the #NHS hashtag and it doesn’t take long to conclude that the NHS is in the throes of a back-door privatisation programme, driven by an overzealous government with the ideological ‘bit’ between its teeth. This...
More…
And the cupboard was bare…
In his Greedy Bastards Hypothesis Scambler (2004) argues that a capitalist class (the greedy bastards) are centrally complicit in widening health inequalities due to their commitment to social and structural changes associated with disorganized capitalism – such as changes that...
More…
Moving Targets
Under the terms of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, the ‘new’ NHS is to be based on four ‘new’ measures of ‘quality’, ‘safety’ and ‘value for money’. These measures are i. current best international standards of evidence, ii....
More…
Playing the blame game: political capital and Mid Staffs