Published in The Spectator (October 13th, 2011) Shock! Horror! Another report reveals the shameful care given to the elderly in British hospitals. People in the twilight of their life […]
Health / Policy
Great Ormond Street’s been put on a pedestal it doesn’t deserve
Published in The Mail on Sunday (June 19th, 2011) The lonely death of Baby P was one of those moments that jolted the entire nation. That picture of […]
Health / Policy
Patients suffer. Standards fall. So why is competition still such a dirty word in the NHS?
Published in the Daily Mail (May 26th, 2011) Living in a high-tech age of instant communication, it is easy to forget how painful the process of obtaining a […]
Health / Policy / Politics
Patients are being betrayed. Don’t retreat from reform
Published in The Times (May 11th, 2011) For those of us forced to deal with the daily realities of healthcare in Britain, Nick Clegg has been an admirable […]
Health / Policy
NHS rewards bosses after 1,200 ‘excess’ deaths at scandal-hit hospitals
Published in The Mail on Sunday (May 1st, 2011) Julie Bailey is still haunted by the death of her mother, who entered hospital a sprightly 86-year-old but was […]
Health / Policy
The NHS is ripe for revolution
Published in The Observer (February 6th, 2011) It was just a small thing, but telling none the less. My son developed an abdominal pain, which was rapidly diagnosed […]
Health / Policy
2,000 dead and still no justice for the victims of Britain’s blood transfusion scandal
Published in the Daily Mail (October 18th, 2010) A few months after his birth, Colin developed a bruise on his knee. It was seen by his aunt, whose […]
Health / Policy
It is patients who will end up losing out
Published in The Independent (November 13th, 2009) Nurses are the lifeblood of the health service. Without good people on the medical front line, all the technological breakthroughs, genetic […]
Health / Policy
The health service needs whistleblowers
Published in The Independent (September 9th, 2009) Soon after Alan Milburn became Health minister in 1997, he wrote to employers across the National Health Service telling them that […]
Disability / Health / Policy
The NHS is flawed. Here’s the evidence…
Published in The Independent (August 28th, 2009) It was the most painful of the emails that I’ve received over the past week. It began, like dozens of others, […]
Disability / Health / Policy
Why I don’t believe that the NHS is sacrosanct
Published in The Independent (August 21st, 2009) It was a simple thing. Another blood test, some more investigations into whatever flawed gene or missing protein might be the […]
Disability / Health / Politics
The hell I share with David Cameron
Published in The Spectator (October 22nd, 2005) My daughter suffered two seizures the other night. One was shortly after midnight, the other a couple of hours later. Having […]