Is Care Unsafe for People with a Learning Disability? The Case of Connor Sparrowhawk
Connor Sparrowhawk was 18 years old when he drowned in the bath in a NHS short term treatment and assessment facility (Slade House run by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust) on 4th July 2013. He had learning disabilities and epilepsy...
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Letter to Ed Miliband: full text of letter from National Health Action Party
Friday, 19 September 2014 Dear Mr Miliband We are writing to you as concerned doctors and co-leaders of the National Health Action Party. We set up this party to defend and improve the NHS and hold to account politicians who...
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GPs aren’t private companies – but the private takeover is nearing
All GP practices will have to open to private sector competition, NHS England has announced. Is this why 85% of GPs think the NHS will be fully privatised in 10 years? ‘All you GPs are private providers anyway’ I often have...
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The Janus–face of e-cigarettes
“I feel like there is a new toy in the market, let’s try this you know because it’s supposed to be healthy and not cause any health problems, but it’s a chemical that they don’t need. It’s not going to...
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TubeCrush: Privacy, Sexism and Consent in the Digital Age
Sexual desire and abuse have become networked and hashtag-able. Mobile devices have made women’s bodies more public, often without consent, and in ways that mark them as sexual objects. This takes place alongside a visual culture that expects women to...
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Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Mental Health Policy at a Cross Roads in the UK
BME inequality in terms of mental health service use and service provision is no further forward than it was 10 years ago. It needs to be urgently addressed as a high priority area of social policy.
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‘Normal birth’ and ‘breast is best’: the neoliberalisation of reproduction
Neoliberalism has influenced reproduction and birth in a myriad of ways. Much of this re-aapropriates feminist critiques, blunting them of their radical edge and inculcating market principles into childbirth and childcare
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Disability and austerity
In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, disabled people in the UK have been hit disproportionately hard by austerity. Austerity measures have had a strong impact on economic redistribution, in terms of widening income inequalities between disabled and...
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Statins and their side effects
Statins were the 20th century ‘blockbuster’ drug. Almost everyone could benefit from turning a Euro-American cholesterol into a Japanese one according to their supporters … And now they are off-patent, statins look better and better value to those seeing health...
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Antibiotic Resistance. A Dire Emergency on Planet Earth – (fixable if the price is right…)
The issue of ineffective anti-biotics is one driven more by market economics than treatment resistant diseases. A change of spending priorities could change the face of global health, but given the profit margins, this is unlikely to happen.
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To Save or Let Die? Doctors’ Dilemmas in the Chinese Health Sector
In May 2014, a Chinese farmer in Anhui Province cut off his own feet when they deteriorated into severe necrosis, causing unbearable pain. In 2012, a peasant in Hebei province amputated his festering leg using a saw and a fruit...
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Science, Media and Ethics: an uneasy mix?