I wrote a response to a student BMJ article several years ago about the "Jade effect" and the positive outcome the untimely passing of Jade Goody had on the number of women seeking cervical smear tests across the UK. The tragedy surrounding Jade's death coupled with the intense media coverage of her condition ... Read More »

As is usual with most of my posts, this one has been inspired by a recent article I read regarding the number of Britons forced to use food banks. The latest figures suggest that 500,000 people have been forced to rely on charitable donations as the price of everyday goods and utilities increases disproportionately with ... Read More »

The NHS continues to make headlines for all the wrong reasons at the moment as the government attempts to re-establish public trust in it's ability to safeguard the future of health and social care in this country. Of course, this is doing the reverse. Whilst the public are bombarded with failures from all fronts, ... Read More »

On April 1, 2013, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 will permit a greater role for private, for-profit enterprise in the National Health Service (NHS).    Based on the US experience with for-profit health care, “Be careful what you wish for?”  
 
The US has tried and failed to ... Read More »

Opinion piece about the Liverpool Care Pathway ... Read More »

I was looking through the latest tweets on my twitter homepage the other day and found one of doc2doc's thought provoking entries. It was asking whether patients should be reimbursed by their doctors if appointments are delayed or cancelled. The opinion I formed straight away was one of utter disagreement, and I recall ... Read More »

A summary of what was discussed at the ABPI/BMJ Group Conference at BMA House in London. ... Read More »

Integrity is defined as a firm adherence to a code of specifically moral or artistic values. It constitutes one of society’s main fundaments, if not the angular one. Inappropriate authorship, which constitutes a break in research integrity, is unacceptable since it betrays research’s principles, duties and ethical responsibilities to both scientific and lay society.

In order to decrease the prevalence of inappropriate authorship, health research has implemented well-defined criteria for authorship as outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in its Ethical Considerations in the Conduct and Reporting of Research. A recent study reported a prevalence of articles with honorary authorship or ghost authorship, or both, of 21.0% (95% CI 18.0% to 24.3%). Sadly there is no data on the prevalence of inappropriate authorship among the 14 Mexican edited and currently MedLine indexed journals; further more only four of them explicitly outline and require proof of compliance with the ICMJE recommended criteria for authorship.

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                As an outsider I can’t really imagine the impact that the reforms are having. I never witnessed on my own skin a truly private healthcare system. For some reason there seems to be prevalence or a trend in the recent years to encourage privatisation of the ... Read More »

Today in Federal Parliament, the Lower House passed the "Carbon Tax" bill by a narrow majority and after 35 parliamentary enquiries over many years. It still has to be passed by the Senate but this is putting Australia onto a new road which will mean in the first year carbon here will cost $23 per ton and increase in ... Read More »