Rearticulating material inequalities as spatial inequalities (and how to stop it)
In order to assess the current policy approach to addressing inequalities, it is necessary to think critically about the ‘levelling up’ policy context in the UK. To do this, we need to think about changes to dominant ways in which...
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“The Emperor’s New Clothes”: health inequalities in ethnic minority communities
The classic children’s story ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, catches the imagination with its allegory of logical fallacies and fear of and failure to criticise. Still, it is the way it classically embodies society’s seditious reticence, a state where everyone refuses...
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Public Health and the problem with class
Medicine, as a profession, does not recruit equitably from the UK’s population. This matters because working-class young people do not have equal chances of becoming doctors. But it also matters how public health interventions are designed and delivered. All too...
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Artificial Intelligence and Medical Sociology
It is fair to say that there is growing concern about the use of artificial intelligence in almost all facets of our lives. In universities, a lot of this worry centres on the potential use of AI by students and...
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The right to convalesce
An extended period of fatigue is a feature of COVID-19, lingering and depleting the body and the mind long after the acute symptoms of infection have come and gone. Fatigue is not just present in what we refer to as...
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The Fall of NHS Dentistry: A service in crisis.
There is a crisis in NHS Dentistry. A survey of NHS dental practices last year found that 91% of NHS practices were not accepting new adult patients, rising to 98% in ‘the South West, North West and Yorkshire and the...
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Purity and danger in pandemic public health
A socio-historical take on fear messaging Public health strategies to encourage compliance and behaviour change during the pandemic have been criticised for applying behavioural theories like “nudge theory” to induce fear. The Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B)...
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The Last of Us – Review
I have tried to keep plot spoilers to a minimum, but this review may have a few minor spoilers. Even before COVID struck, people were tired of post-pandemic apocalyptic dramas in film and television. The long-running television series The Walking...
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ALLERGY… REALLY?
I took my daughter to the general practice the other day. She has a swelling knee that looks infected. We waited a short time and then we were called in. The doctor examined it and confirmed our fears. He then...
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Lucky strike
In 1888 the match girls of Bryant and May match factory in London went on strike, after years of discontent and triggered by the unfair dismissal of a worker in the July of that year. Workers were not unionised, employed...
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Break a leg! Observations on continuity of care
I’ve been thinking about continuity of care. The advantage of continuity of care was taken for granted in traditional, community based general practice where the family doctor got to know people, in their own context, over time. Seeing the same...
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Losing more than we ever had: The NHS staffing crisis, 4-year degrees and what will be lost