It was a great pleasure today to attend and speak at a meeting in Senate House in London to celebrate the career and writings of Mike Bury. Not least of the day’s pleasures was reacquainting with numerous old friends and colleagues. Many of the old London medical school group: David Armstrong, Judy Green, Charlotte Humphrey,… Read More »
It has been a pleasure to coauthor a paper on stigma resistance in Social Science and Medicine with Italian sociologist Alice Scavarda. Fortunately, this is an open access contribution (SSM 376 (2025) 118097). It is not my intention here to offer a summary of the findings from Alice’s study of the parents of children with… Read More »
I recall being taken off guard when a well-known and widely respected sociologist entering the third age seemed to be constantly fishing for compliments. I had considerable respect for him both personally and for his very real accomplishments within the discipline. But I quietly wished he’d desist. I didn’t want him to somehow diminish his… Read More »
Last year (16/6/23) I blogged about the fact, and dwelt on the ramifications of, the intrusion of private providers into the NHS, not least via general practice. I focused on Operose, formed in 2020 when its American parent company Centene Corporation brought together its UK subsidiaries, The Practice Group and Simply Health. In a nutshell,… Read More »
Part and parcel of the politically calculated undermining of the NHS in England is the introduction of cheaper staff. As has become the pattern of late, it is a process conducted by stealth. In this bog I look at what is happening in the primary care sector. It serves as a rider to my recent… Read More »
I have just now sent off a draft of my next book, to be called ‘Health: Policy, Practice, Obstacles’. While I am awaiting comments from reviewers and the series editors, and to pass the time between writing projects – in my local, the King Willie – I thought I’d say something about a concept that… Read More »
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX 8 July 2022 Dear Dr XXXXXXX I am writing to you in the form of constructive feedback, not criticism. I am only too aware of the harsh constraints under which GPs and their colleagues in primary care are currently working and of the wider causes of this, of… Read More »
In what amounts to a fairly prolific series of blogs condemning the Conservative assault on the English National health Service (NHS), I have bemoaned their clandestine advance planning, their ideological subversion, the calculated politics of austerity from 2010-2020, and the two Health and Social Care Acts of 2012 and 2022 (the first of which left… Read More »
I am encouraged of late to remind myself of the longstanding literature on the doctor-patient relationship. For many decades I travelled with bands of students and doctors from Parsons, Freidson and active versus passive relations to more recent ideals of reciprocity, concordance and so on. But things have changed, at least in England, as at… Read More »
Two themes that have run through my blogs over many years have been: (i) the Tories have long been intent on killing off the NHS and bringing in private providers, and (ii) Lansley’s wordy and often misunderstood Health and Social Care Act of 2012 opened the door for later moves to this end. COVID provided… Read More »