Since September my main attention has been directed to the long awaited redesign of the website. The new site has now been launched and I expect to spend some weeks improving its functionality. As the launch was a bit later than expected I found myself with time on my hands, which I devoted to improving … Read more
The Labour Party Health Policy Commission will be turning its attention to Public Health over the next few months – after three years when the operation of the NHS crowded out discussion about health. What follows is not intended to be a policy proposal, but a list of issues which the SHA may wish to … Read more
The Independent Commission on Whole Person Care was launched in April 2013 by Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall MPs to help inform Labour’s Health and Care Policy Review. Sir John Oldham CBE, one of the country’s leading experts on integrated care, was asked to chair the Commission and appointed a group of experts … Read more
From a member of Labour International currently living in California As a Brit in the US, in common with most other Brits here, the US health “care” system (actually, profit-making industry – health is an occasional by-product which is nice, but not essential) is one of the most shocking, awful, unequal and frankly disgraceful aspects of … Read more
The NHS has been closing hospital beds steadily since 1948. On the appointed day in England and Wales the NHS took over 1,143 voluntary hospitals with some 90,000 beds, and 1,545 municipal hospitals with about 390,000 beds (including 190,000 in mental illness and mental handicap hospitals). Now there are only about half as many beds. In … Read more
Debut of Tomas Northmore as political cartoonist with thanks to Aaron
COMPOSITE 6 – NHS Conference notes reports on August 15 that waiting lists for operations reached their longest in 5 years and figures published on August 21 that show 5,276 fewer nurses in NHS since May 2010. Conference expresses concern over the recent crisis in A&E under David Cameron. Since the election, people waiting over … Read more
Since June my main activities have been the development of the website – the Editorial Board will report on this building a partnership with Equality North West. We have started a programme of events around health inequality across the North West, and have done 2 sessions in Bolton more Defending the NHS sessions, in Bristol, … Read more
When Charles Frederick Thackray and Henry Scurrah Wainwright bought a Leeds retail pharmacy as a going concern in 1902, they could hardly have foreseen that their business would one day expand to employ more than 700 people, with markets all over the world. In less than a century, the corner shop was to grow into … Read more
There is still controversy about the plain packaging of cigarettes, and unit pricing of alcohol, but it seems clear that both measures will be introduced eventually throughout the UK. But there has been relatively little political discussion of public health since the last election. Andrew Lansley claimed he wanted to be responsible for public health, … Read more
Over the last couple of years we have organised and participated in many discussions about threats to the NHS, thanks to Mr Lansley. These debates have provided an opportunity to reconsider many of the founding principles of the NHS, principles which have been taken for granted for many years. This is an attempt to distil … Read more
This explication of Disease Management Programmes in Germany is derived from a presentation by Prof. Karl Lauterbach, Member of the Bundestag and Director of the Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology University Hospital, Cologne at the London School of Economics in May 2013 The burden of Chronic Disease Chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiac disease … Read more