We’ve researched transgender inclusion for nearly a decade – how we do our work has changed
We’ve researched the experiences of transgender and non-binary people, particularly in the workplace, for much of the last ten years. Our original motivations remain: generate robust evidence. However, the environment is unrecognisable from when we started. Politicised media stories and...
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Cutting their teeth in government- why the Labour Party will fail on tooth decay
Whilst it may be some way from being the most glamorous debate in political economy, the issue of tooth decay is instructive of a larger systemic problem in the relationship between pre-general election party policy and the future of the...
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Mental Health Culture
“Mental health culture has gone too far, says Mel Stride”. This was the title of an article published in The Telegraph towards the end of March, that certainly generated a fair amount of attention on my Twitter feed, at least....
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Will a controversial new data platform change how the NHS “thinks”?
It was announced last year that the controversial tech firm Palantir had won a huge new contract with the NHS to provide a digital platform for the management of health data. The company will provide the NHS with a new...
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The NHS in Late Soviet Britain
We are now at the unprecedented point where private hospitals are doing one in ten planned NHS operations in England. This marks a 50% increase in elective procedures outsourced to private providers since 2019 (before COVID), leading some to claim...
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Hospital privatisation is linked with worse quality care for patients – new research
The NHS is in a critical state. The continued consequences of the pandemic and long waits for treatment mean that people are facing more difficulties than ever accessing the care they need. A growing number of people are even paying...
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Public Fears Of Getting Old: Is society making us scared of ageing?
We live in times of heightened societal fears of ageing. Ageing is seen as both a process and a state that we must vigilantly monitor and slow down, however, we cannot avoid it. Youthfulness, and its perceived vigour, are to...
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Physician Associates: why the controversy?
Primary care workloads are a perennial concern in the NHS. With problems recruiting and retaining GPs, policies to expand the skill mix are a usual mainstay of calls for improvement. Plans to expand the Physician Associates (PA) workforce are one...
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The fragile worker: stigma, illness and disability in the contemporary workplace
Fragility is a not a concept we explore often in relation to the workplace disability. When we use the word fragile we are often talking about objects; when it’s used in relation to people, we often mean the very old,...
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War and conflict – what’s the role of medical sociology?
War and conflict are very much part of our global experience as we move into 2024. The conflicts in Ukraine and in Gaza are ongoing and prominent in Global North media and popular discourse. Other conflicts, such as in Syria...
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O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, how lovely are your branches.
We have a running debate in our house about the relative benefits of real and fake Christmas trees. Each year for the past 25 years I have made my bid for a real tree. I used to argue for the...
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“Mental health culture” has not gone far enough – long term failures in mental health policy