"Let them eat resilience"
The genealogy of the vocabulary of resilience and why it matters for public health Nothing about the title of this post is original. The main title imitates that of an essay by historical sociologist Margaret Somers called ‘Let them eat social capital’,...
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Trouble in Arcadia: Citizen-led planning in the English countryside
The Localism Act (2011)identified local communities as best placed to determine the nature of development in their areas. Apparently, by empowering and responsibilising local communities, the rhetoric of localism in neighbourhood planning, marks an attempt to square democratic engagement with...
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Frankie Boyle’s hamster & the NHS long-term plan
Back in what now seems like a curiously quaint era for UK civil democracy, the Scottish Independence referendum was the once-in-a-generation opportunity for a group of people to take back control™ of their own political destiny. Despite what must have...
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Matt Hancock- another victim of Perpetual NHS Shock Syndrome (PNSS)
This week, Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, called for radical change in the NHS workforce in order to support doctors and nurses who experience trauma in their daily work. Indeed Mr Hancock went so...
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Co-payments for universal healthcare: the politics of blame
It was interesting to see the UK media discussion around the Co-Funding and Co-Payment Bill which was put before the House of Commons for its 2nd reading last week. The Parliamentary webpage describes it as “a Bill to make provision for co-funding...
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Data & the gaming of A&E waiting times
A few days ago I found myself investigating the bed occupancy statistics for an NHS hospital trust. This was in response to a friend telling me that the hospital had found the need to invent a new colour level of...
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A shuffling shambles: calamity or conspiracy?
The news earlier this week that Jeremy Hunt was not only going to be staying as Secretary of State for Health, but was also extending his ministerial remit to cover social care as well, came as something of a shock....
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Deportation and despair in context
Assessments of the health needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe tend to focus on trauma suffered prior to exile and during the flight to the host country. Less attention has been paid to the ill effects of the...
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Public troubles and private lives – how could ‘iHomecare’ be the answer to the social care crisis?
There is a permanent contradiction in the sphere of health and social care in that one person’s home is another person’s workplace, such that people’s private lives are intertwined with public responses to those lives (i.e. the state provision of...
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When should we worry? Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is in the news as public health specialists around the world ask us to pay attention to Antibiotic Awareness Week. Posters have gone up across the UK warning that ‘taking antibiotics when you don’t need them puts...
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Making a virtue of variation? The fragmentation of the English NHS
Geographic reform of the NHS is not new: region, district, area, and locality are all familiar terms in NHS history, and notions of “place” as an organising principle retain an intrinsic appeal for policy-makers. Recently, the English NHS has now...
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Doctors as border police: what happened to ‘first, do no harm’?