Epidurals were developed for pregnant women to address the severe pain of labour. In Australia approximately one in three pregnant women in labour has an epidural for pain relief.
A terminally ill doctor has started a campaign to encourage healthcare staff to introduce themselves to patients. Kate Granger initiated the “Hello my name is …” campaign while she was hospitalised and…
The law of consent to medical procedures is (to paraphrase legal philosopher HLA Hart) “tantalisingly obscure”. Narrowly interpreted, the law sets out a professional standard regarding the risks a medical…
Many governments are going to great lengths to provide better information about the quality of health and social care services. In the US, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid recently announced a raft…
There is great enthusiasm for using “big data” to enable better biomedical research across the globe. But big data isn’t just about collating lots of old and new records. Including ongoing real-time data…
The debate about uploading nearly all data from UK medical practices to a national database continues to cause concern. Responding to fears that the information held in the care.data database will put…
For the first time, Gold Coast hospitals are preparing for schoolies using technology to predict when drunk and injured teens will need help. With over 28,000 school leavers about to descend on the Gold…
Julian Le Grand, London School of Economics and Political Science
David Nicholson, the retiring Chief Executive of NHS England, has warned against what he called “carpet bombing” the NHS with competition. For him, and others, less focus on competition is a good thing…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne