
blogs


Developing Health Course – final reflections
The Developing Health Course is over, and I am back at my desk. What a privilege it has been…

A new IVF milestone
Thirty-four years after the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978 it is estimated that…

BMA corrects Lord Falconer’ s misrepresentation of its position on ‘assisted dying’
Yesterday I drew attention to Lord Falconer’s false claim in the Times that the British Medical Association…

Why legalising assisted suicide for anyone at all will inevitably lead to incremental extension
Pro-euthanasia activists always make a great play of how their proposals to help people kill themselves…

Pigs and plasters
I always enjoy week two of the Developing Health Course. By now we have got to know one another,…

Former Lord Chancellor misrepresents BMA position
The Times today carries an article (£) promoting Lord Falconer’s new assisted suicide bill which…

The legalisation of assisted suicide – what’s money got to do with it?
Today, according to the Sunday Times, Lord Falconer (pictured) will publish his new bill on…

Minding the gap – Developing Health Course 2012
We are half way through the Developing Health Course, after a fantastic first week. We have learned…

Abortion counselling gets BMA backing
This week has seen some important voting on abortion and assisted dying when the British Medical Association…

BMA Ethics Debate – great results on both abortion and euthanasia
This morning the British Medical Association Annual Representative Meeting debated two motions on abortion…

Why the BMA should not go neutral on assisted suicide and euthanasia
This Wednesday, 27 June, the British Medical Association Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) will vote…
Walk75 | Prayer Walk for Health
This year, we celebrate 75 years since the Christian Medical Fellowship came into being. Over that time, God has done some amazing things through Christian medics, nurses, midwives, and others coming together to pray, study God’s word, serve and encourage one another, and share the good news of Jesus. In the UK and worldwide, we […]
McArthur ‘Assisted Dying’ Bill announced
On 29 March 2024, Liam McArthur, MSP, announced his ‘Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill’ to the Scottish Parliament. This will now be debated and scrutinised by the Parliament. If passed, it would mean the legalisation of doctor-assisted suicide for those with an advanced illness who choose it, within the Scottish NHS. The […]
A confluence of evils
There are times when you see a confluence of evils merging from afar, but they merge so slowly that most people remain totally unaware of them, or if they are they just shrug their shoulders and move on. I first wrote about my concerns over organ donation from those requesting euthanasia (ODfE) in 2017 when Belgium […]
Midwifery in the headlines
Midwifery was in the news for all the wrong reasons at the end of last year. As a midwife of ten years, I was heartbroken to read headlines from The Times that said: ‘Midwives “toxic” working conditions putting babies’ lives at risk, report finds‘ and The Telegraph that said: “Russian roulette’ maternity units risk lives […]
Striking the right balance
how can Christian medics decide about industrial action? Until a decade ago, I was a medic struggling through the NHS quagmire. So, when I had the opportunity to join the CMF Junior Doctors Conference back in November 2023, I prepared myself to meet lots of doctors now near drowning in the thickening muck. In the […]
Want to change the future?
Having grown up in a TV family, I particularly loved movies that fostered the imagination, especially time travel. To be able to change what could have been or what might be, was the stuff of childhood dreams. What would you change if you could time travel? Suppose you could jump in a time machine, and […]
The ‘Letby effect’ on this paediatric nurse
Firstly, let me say that I cannot even begin to imagine the grief the families involved in this case must have gone through these last eight years and are still going through. The atrocities committed by Lucy Letby are chilling and deeply distressing. Honestly, it doesn’t seem enough to say that my ‘thoughts and prayers’ […]
The UK’s first womb transplant – what the media missed out
The first UK ‘womb transplant’, carried out by Richard Smith’s team in Oxford and announced at the end of August, understandably gained a lot of press coverage and was heralded by some as the ‘dawn of a new era’. In fact, the first uterus transplant was carried out in 2000 in Saudi Arabia in a […]
Lucy Letby – a warning for NHS culture
The tragic loss of life and heartache caused by Lucy Letby is beyond imagination. Our hearts go out to all those affected. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made that look even worse with the power and accuracy of the ‘retrospectoscope’. Patient safety was not put first, nor was the dogged pursuit of the truth of what happened […]
Lucy Letby- a deep grief
This is such a deeply disturbing case. One of the most horrifying scandals to ever hit the NHS. A neonatal nurse killed seven babies and attempted to murder six more. The perpetrator being a nurse is causing our nurse and midwife members, and us in the CMF Nurses & Midwives team, real grief. First, we’d […]
Doctors on strike – reflections of a conflicted consultant
On 1 August 1983, my life changed forever. I started work in the NHS. I lost all that I had known of normal life and have spent the last 40 years working in a broken system. I am in no doubt it needs fixing. Navigating endless demands with inadequate resources has been costly. From the […]
Complete societal capture on abortion
The sentencing of a woman for two years imprisonment for performing a home abortion with pills obtained via a phone consultation raises lots of questions. However, the main question asked in an almost universal chorus of headlines was why are our ‘archaic’ and ‘unfair’ abortion laws still in place? ‘A woman has been jailed for […]