
blogs


COVID-19 is exposing UK health inequalities
Recent figures from theDepartment of Health and Social Care (DHSC) show the UK death toll from COVID-19…

God, ethics and COVID-19
‘Oh – and by the way, I’ve recommended you for chairing the Covid Ethics Committee. Hope that’s…

From the mouths of children…
In the old fairy tale of The Emperor's New Clothes, a tailor tells a king that he has invented a wonderful…

COVID-19: an opportunity for sharing Christ with a world searching for answers
Christians are called to be representatives of Christ, not just in their homes but also within their…

The Nightingale Legacy
With the news just over a week ago that the London Nightingale Hospital was to be 'mothballed' as no…

Social care and COVID-19: crisis or opportunity?
If a week is a long time in politics in normal times, then at the moment two years can feel like a geological…

Coping with loneliness in lockdown
Over the past few weeks, the world has changed drastically. What was once considered normal, such as…

Palliative care and COVID-19
I didn’t pay much attention to them at first. The news stories about Wuhan and the Facebook posts from…

Coping with loss of control
We are used to a sense of control over our lives and our day to day decisions. I can choose when to…

Some biblical answers to suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, people and physicians around the world are facing trials of many…

Uncertainty: our new normality
We’ve heard a lot about how Covid-19 affects the lungs, often catastrophically. But what about the…
‘Cohabitation Can Be Hazardous to Your Health’, says American College of Paediatricians
The American College of Paediatricians is a national medical association of licensed physicians and healthcare professionals who specialize in the care of infants, children, and adolescents. The mission of the College is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. They issued this press release on 23 March. With its position […]
Human dignity and the code
The best nursing care comes through creativity and innovation, adapting care to the needs of the individual patient, rather than cramming each person into a ‘cookie cutter care plan’. But there is more than a hint of nanny-state micromanagement in new nursing guidelines that came into effect this week. The new NMC Code came into […]
Time is not money: learning to value relationships
Life as a missionary doctor certainly has its unique challenges, and one of those is trying to fit into and understand different cultures. Today, I find myself in the strange situation of knowing where I will be every day during June and July, while I am visiting the UK, but not knowing what I will […]
Fast tracking of Lord Saatchi’s new medical treatments bill stopped in its tracks
Lord Saatchi has been campaigning for a new law since his wife, novelist Josephine Hart, died from a form of ovarian cancer in 2011. He introduced to the House of Lords a proposed new law, the Medical Innovation Bill, (or the ‘Saatchi Bill’ as it has become known) primarily to allow the responsible use of […]
Lord Carey is putting his faith in the wrong place: ‘three parent’ embryos will not end great suffering
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey has decided to make public his views on the creation of three parent embryos. Or, more specifically, to make public his views on anyone who has the temerity to oppose their creation. These new, treatments will, he assures us, end great suffering and the scientists behind it are trustworthy, […]
Suicide – oh no, assisted suicide – oh yes!
On 19 January, Nick Clegg called for a ‘zero suicides’ target among people suffering from mental illnesses. Almost 4,700 people committed suicide in UK in 2013, at least 90% of whom were thought to be struggling with mental health issues, particularly depressive or substance abuse disorders. The results of a programme in Detroit US have […]
Egg donation for research: an urgent call for volunteers!
Tucked away in all the media coverage of the three parent embryo debate, and on the same day of the vote in Parliament, was a news article from a local North-East paper, the ChronicleLive with an urgent request: ‘Egg donors needed to help with pioneering Newcastle medical technique’ And a new advert for donors states: […]
It’s raining men: the cost of 34 million more males than females in China
Just as the UK debates the need for a new law to prevent abortion based on gender, the Chinese Government has announced its latest population statistics. In amongst the data is the remarkable admission by the Chinese health authorities that the gender imbalance among newborns is ‘the most serious and prolonged’ in the world. The […]
Three-parent embryos – five big questions for MPs to consider ahead of vote
Tomorrow MPs in the House of Commons will be asked to vote to make Britain the first country in the world to offer controversial ‘three-parent’ fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on mitochondrial diseases to their children. This is final crunch time. Last week forty scientists from 14 countries urged the British legislature to […]
The government’s new ‘prevent duty guidance’ – imposing political correctness on university groups
The Government’s Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, currently being considered by the House of Lords, places a duty on specified authorities, including universities, to ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. Who could possibly object to that, you might ask. But in a Britain where rising state intrusion and […]
Freedom of conscience in the new Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Conduct
A new year seems a good time to launch a new set of guidelines, and the NMC have chosen this January to launch their extensively re-written ‘Code of Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for good nursing and midwifery practice’ (usually just know as ‘The Code’). While it has been published now, it does not […]
Disaster response: Malawi faces floods
Many people here daily live life on the edge, so it doesn’t take much to push it over into an emergency. As Malawi last week experienced its usual annual rainfall during just three days, we found ourselves experiencing a natural disaster. Early signs of the larger disaster came as three people came to our […]