Integrated neighbourhoods are a collaborative effort of health and social care providers, as well as voluntary/non-statutory organisations, which aim to improve the health and wellbeing of residents and service users. Afsana Bhuiya, Seher Kayicki and Faha Iqbal outline what we know about
New research by Kathryn B Cunningham and colleagues presents three key elements concerning the process of connection in indirect route social prescribing schemes (those involving link workers). Here, the authors summarise their findings ...
NHS chiefs and policy-makers should be cautious about assuming that diverting patients to the private sector will take pressure off the NHS and reduce NHS waiting times.
Today is my third “Cancerversary..." I am so lucky to be working in a great practice. With a supportive team – clinicians who truly care. But I just don’t know if this is enough...
Internet shutdowns are government interventions motivated to intentionally disrupt access to, and the use of, online information and communication systems. These measures pose a novel and growing threat to various elements of global public health.
Why have poverty and fuel poverty become medicalised? We know that social determinants of health shape and drive health outcomes. Poverty and fuel poverty are increasingly positioned within a biopsychosocial model of medicine and health.
Uptake of national screening programmes suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, but how are uptake numbers faring post-pandemic? Richard Armitage presents the data ...
As FIFA excitement reaches fever pitch, it’s squeaky bum time for health care services already struggling with long wait times, capacity issues and a workforce crisis.
We attend reputable GP-training events and feel confident that the training delivered will be up to date and relevant. And yet, there's something about menopause where all this somehow falls apart.
The editor, Euan Lawson, discusses Mastodon, the new elephant in the social media room.
In 1946, the Constitution of the World Health Organization defined health as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'. Ever since, this definition has been widely criticised and many alternatives have
While various definitions of health have been offered over recent centuries, the search for an enduring and completely satisfying definition has proven frustratingly elusive. Richard Armitage wrestles with one of the most recent and promising definitions.
In my early years of practice, I thought the very act of named diagnosis was a victory. As time has progressed ... I have grown to realise that this semantic box does not in itself contain the cure, and sometimes, can contain
"On my clinical days, I focus on the micro-level of health care. Thinking about the macro-level of things, including the politics of it all, tends to send my heart rate up when I am in the thick of clinical practice. Am I
While no GPs or other celebrity doctors have featured on the cast of any previous I’m a Celeb series, it seems far from impossible for such an event to transpire. Richard Armitage ponders...
The clocks going back as we descend into winter each year generates an additional hour that we generally choose to spend asleep. A poignant philosophical reflection on time.
I’d imagine that a fair few of my colleagues can relate to the fact that most days, I feel like a walking, talking pie chart, cut up into colour-coded segments. Are we so lost in the political drive to provide access, that
In an age of mass-production and commodification it is not surprising that the governmental response to our increasing losses of doctors is to recurrently and rhetorically press for greater production and wider recruitment. But in doing so are we avoiding deeper human
Twitter has undoubtedly become the world’s digital town square, and provides the soapbox upon which contemporary issues and political dialogue are played out in real time. Richard Armitage explores the Twittersphere in the wake of Elon Musk's takeover.
The growing SAS workforce, and the stalling growth of the GP workforce, combined with warnings of a mass exodus from the profession, has clearly got people thinking. The GMC report suggests that the solutioninvolves shifting the SAS workforce into general practice.
The winning submission of the Royal Society of Medicine John Fry Prize by Salwa Ahmad.
Although the doctor-patient relationship works in favour of promoting healing, it may not be sufficient.
Doctors are inordinately fond of nouns. By and large, patients come to us not just with nouns, but with stories which include them but are driven along by verbs, words of action, backed up by adverbs, pronouns, and so on...
Should healthcare professionals ever strike? For some healthcare professionals, going on strike crosses a professional and moral line. Nada Khan explores the debate.
Social media has transformed the ways we live as a society, forever altering the ways in which we communicate and relax. And this abrupt change to social discourse which has gradually developed over thousands of years is having implications for young people.
What is the Metaverse? What does it do? How does it work? Richard Armitage offers answers to these questions and presents what a consultation in the Metaverse may look like in the future.
General practice needs to become more efficient while improving care quality and safety. How can we do this? SNOMED CT holds some of the answers, but many practices are unaware of its full potential ...
How is it that 'part time' GPs are working 'full time' hours? Nada Khan investigates!
Richard Armitage suggests it is right for GPs to primarily regard their beneficiaries as ‘agents’ rather than ‘patients’ in the majority of general practice consultations.
Trans people face multiple barriers to health care from various healthcare providers. Here, Kamilla Kamaruddin describes how working with charities can improve services and residence workload.
Digital currencies, otherwise known as blockchain-enabled cryptocurrencies, have made unmissable impacts on the global economy. But what are they, how do they work and, most importantly for us, what are their effects on human health and wellbeing?
Rumina Önaç gives the rundown on Greener Practice's 5th birthday meet up, where among the meditation, craft, and poetry reading sessions, volunteers shared ideas and discussed what steps could be made to best help the NHS accomplish its goal of achieving net
Increased dialogue about the unique nuances of physicians adopting the role of ‘patient’ should be supported throughout medical training, argues Isabella de Vere Hunt.
As depression in older people can present with somatic and cognitive symptoms, it is often attributed to normal ageing and may be overlooked by the clinician and the older adult. Carolyn Chew-Graham and colleagues share insights from the latest NICE guidance.
Of course the GP has always in a way been a 'conductor' between different hospital specialists, co-ordinating treatments and providing holistic care, but the unique role of the GP is rapidly being broken up into its constituent parts, through the PCN system
There inner city trainees share their experience of the MRCGP recorded consultation assessment (RCA) and highlight some key issues for future iterations of the MRCGP assessment.
In England over the last two years, you are likely to have seen people whizzing around on brightly coloured electric scooters. While they might be a fun, practical, and relatively cheap mode of transport, just how safe are they for their users
Where do diseases live? It seems an odd question, but perhaps an important one, because we need to find a disease in order to treat it ... If we don’t recognise the location correctly, we end up treating poverty with statins.
With increasing pressures, targets and expectations, and a higher risk of workforce burnout, it seems that both patient, and physician safety remain at risk argues Nada Khan
The recent cyber-attack on NHS systems, on the background of zero-days and zero-day exploit markets, raise concern for the safety of digitised patient data – those that are often used in primary care settings – are they too sensitive to be digitally
'GPs are not good at relational care or managing complexity and uncertainty because of any inherent aptitude for these things, but because our role places us into an environment in which they are unavoidable,' argues Ben Hoban.
