Seventeen years ago, the Department of Health berated the NHS for not learning lessons about patient safety. What’s changed?
There’s much we can do to stop our junior doctors from feeling devalued, demoralised and depressed, like this junior doctor protesting in London earlier in 2016.
from www.shutterstock.com
Medical tourism is the practice of seeking medical care across international borders. Countries with established medical sectors like the US, Europe, India and Thailand have been traditional destinations…
According to Atul Gawande medicine lies at “the messy intersection of science and human fallibility”. Named as one of the world’s most influential thinkers by Time in 2010, Gawande is a world renowned…
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that the government will consider extending the legal duty of health professionals to be open and honest with patients or their families when mistakes cause harm is one of the…
Do official inquiries and reports make any difference to how we run and regulate the NHS? It’s a year since Robert Francis published his findings following the high profile failings at Mid Staffordshire…
For people with learning disabilities the world can be a bewildering and strange place to get to grips with, but in hospitals it can be even worse. Sometimes members of staff at a busy hospital simply…
The point of surgical procedures is to save or improve the quality of our lives, but things can and do go wrong because of system or human errors. In too many cases patients are failed because of so called…
Our man from Boston: Don Berwick (left) has had some things to say about the NHS.
Wikimedia Commons/HHSgov
One of US President Barack Obama’s key health advisers has just published a review in the aftermath of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal. Don Berwick’s review is both thoughtful and reflective but…
Whistling while you work should be part of the NHS culture.
Flickr/Truthout.org
I lost my job in 2010 after raising concerns about staff shortages and patient safety in the NHS. But despite the NHS Chief Executive’s promise to intervene for whistleblowers and a tribunal in my favour…
Everyone seems to prefer a big punch up.
Flickr/Peacay
It’s a traditional part of the theatre of health policy for trade unionists to give secretaries of state for health a hard time. The latest example of this was the vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt…
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford