MetaFilter posts tagged with nhs

this is why that is important

fight or flight — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:11:46 -0800

NSFWCORP presents This Is How You Healthcare: American Death in London by Sarah Bee:

The main things that keep me sane are the airy beauty and peacefulness of the hospital building, messages from friends and family far away on earth, the mundane magnificence of the staff: and the knowledge that all of this is free and taken care of and I do not have to fill in a single fuckforsaken form or bust one precious braincell worrying about how I might have to find money to pay for the futile care of my dying deadbeat dad.

I return to this miraculous fact many times a day, in exactly the same way that I return often to the little visitors’ bedroom, lock the door and curl up on the bed. The knowledge soothes me like clean sheets and heat. Imagine, I think in the middle of the night. Imagine if I had to worry about that stuff. With what, exactly, would I worry about it?

#Transdocfail

MartinWisse — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:52:27 -0800

Julie Burchill being nasty again about trans people in The Guardian (in an article since replaced by an apology of the editor) is bad enough, as it might provide cover for bullying but much more worrying is the general disrespect and disdain many trans people receive from their own doctors, as documented in stories shared through Twitter and elsewhere. Two weeks ago, one of the few doctors providing gender re-assignment outside the NHS, doctor Richard Curtis came under investigation by the General Medical Council, for alleged errors made during gender reassignment, including one alleged wrongful referral for surgery. For many trans people this investigation looked like yet another attack on the already scarce resources for gender reassignment in the UK, once again focusing on the alleged harm that might have been done to people erroneously under going gender realignment therapies, rather than the everyday difficulties many trans people have with getting the right medical support. This anger led to the establishment of the TransDocFail hashtag on twitter, started by trans activists Zoe O'Connell and Lib Dem councillor Sarah Brown, asking UK trans patients to relate their experiences with gender reassignment and health care in general. It led to a flood of tweets by trans people, often anonymously describing the problems and bigotry they encounter at their GP or hospital. The heart of the problem still seems to be the idea that trans people need to be protected from making a potential mistake more than they need to be helped become what they really are, as well as a continuing transphobia amongst some health care workers, not often addressed in the news media. As Sarah Brown is quoted:

“The media are typically invested in presenting a rigid narrative about how trans people interact with medicine. The stories trans people would like to tell, stories of outrageous levels of systemic abuse and transphobia, don't fit this narrative and so go ignored and unreported. Social media is changing this. The stories trans people have to tell are reaching people who seldom hear them, and people are often appalled by what they hear. We can't even begin to tackle widespread medical abuse of trans people until there is wider awareness of just how bad it is.”

A related problem is the fact that so often, the only trans stories covered in the media are negative ones, which is something the We Happy Trans project attempts to do something about (as featured previously).

Their Beeb

infini — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:47:41 -0800

In the two years building up to the government’s NHS reform bill, the BBC appears to have categorically failed to uphold its remit of impartiality, parroting government spin as uncontested fact, whilst reporting only a narrow, shallow view of opposition to the bill. In addition, key news appears to have been censored. The following in-depth investigation provides a shocking testimony of the extent to which the BBC abandoned the NHS.

This is how to do policy consultation responses

dmt — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:55:53 -0800

Rap attack: six hundred clause Health and Social Care Bill 2011 eviscerated in three minutes by amateur rapper 22 year old bin man, Sean Donnelly has done a great deal to shine a harsh light on the British Government’s complex proposals for health policy reform. To my ear, there’s probably a but too much coarse abuse but the section at 1.49 is devastating. Cue media shitstorm. Cue Prime Ministerial back pedalling. Via Radio 4.

Lapdog healthcare

VikingSword — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:03:18 -0800

Coalition health reforms will spell the end for the NHS and lead to U.S. style system, claim researchers. 'Prof Allyson Pollock, from the Barts and The London School of Medicine, and David Price, senior research fellow at its Centre for Health Sciences, write in a paper published on BMJ.com that the legislation “amounts to the abolition of the English NHS as a universal, comprehensive, publicly accountable, tax funded service, free at the point of delivery”. They say the Government “has repealed the health secretary’s duty to provide or secure the provision of comprehensive care” in order to create a commercial market in care. Instead, under the new system the state "finances but does not provide healthcare", in “equivalent to Medicare and Medicaid schemes in the US”'. Meanwhile, Dr Kim Price, claims 'the UK coalition government's planned NHS and welfare reforms, and their use of 'nudge' theory, hark back to ideas on welfare and recession from the end of the nineteenth century, according to studies by a University of Leicester historian whose research paper has recently been published in the Lancet'. In his paper in the Lancet, Dr Price argues that the UK's Coalition Government has begun to tackle the annual deficit with the language and policy aims from the recession of 1870. In the late 19th century the Conservatives instigated a policy to cut back welfare expenditure and lessen reliance on poor law out-relief. This included cutting medical extras and payments to lone mothers, widows, the elderly, the chronically sick, and people who were disabled or had mental illness. The result, Dr Price believes, lowered the health of many families and increased the number of people who could no longer be supported at home. Dependency was criticised by both government and ratepayers, until by the 1880s the Victorian obsession with thrift and self-help had taken hold throughout the voting classes. Philanthropy and charity, however, could not compensate for government aid, and institutional care drove up national expenditure.

NHS Choices: Behind the Headlines

chorltonmeateater — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:28:56 -0800

The NHS Behind the Headlines site gives the scientific facts behind the medical stories making the news.

MPs call for end to NHS funding of homeopathy

vodkaboots — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:11:20 -0800

In the UK, a government-lead evidence check by the Science and Technology Select Committee has lead to MPs calling for a end to funding of homeopathic remedies on the NHS. This may well lead to the closure of NHS homeopathic hospitals, and set out new rules for the labeling of homeopathic products. This is following protests in January over the sale of homeopathic products in pharmacies. Homeopaths around the world have been reacting in dismay.

A day with mental health professionals in North London

handee — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:43:45 -0800

A day with mental health professionals in North London - a Guardian article by Deborah Orr

Yuk

debord — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:48:46 -0800

Traction Man is writing about the food he receives in an NHS hospital bed in England. He's got a Downfall tribute video too.

The Joy of Sex, Jr.

Antidisestablishmentarianist — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:27:17 -0800

The NHS in the UK has released a pamphlet called Pleasure (pdf) to educate teens on the more enjoyable aspects of carnal relations. Some disagree with this development.

"It seems like a money-saving exercise," she said. "If a patient dies, tough."

anotherpanacea — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:27:36 -0800

£35,000-a-year kidney cancer drugs too costly for NHS: Sutent offers to extend a kidney or GIST cancer patient's life by about 26 months, but the British NHS refuses to fund it, citing "marginal benefit at quite often an extreme cost."

Birth of the National Health Service - How the state of the nation's health became a political ideal

fire&wings — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:47:31 -0800

The NHS at 60. The National Health Service is 60 on July 5th. Take a look at documents, audio and video related to the birth and growth of this "radical plan."

One flavor of socialism just... got... marketyer.

prefpara — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:50:17 -0800

Britain's National Health Service has unveiled a plan that would allow citizens to choose where they are treated. I found that I had to refer to the NHS wiki page to refresh my understanding of the British system. The Telegraph has also published an interview with the Health Secretary and is inviting reader response. Health care vouchers were the "next big idea" in 2005 according to the Washington Monthly (headline: "Solved!"). There are those who believe that a voucher-based system would be apropriate in the US.

"One sheds one's sickness in books." D. H. Lawrence

anotherpanacea — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:41:23 -0800

Books that heal: bibliotherapy banishes vexations of soul. Maybe.

Looks like FARK will need a new tagline...

dash_slot- — Thu, 18 May 2006 16:58:52 -0800

Newsfilter: Cure for cancers 'in five years'.