The Peter Fisher Essay Prize, open to all doctors in training, carries a first prize of £500 and second prize of £200. It is now in its seventh year. (more…)
News / Blog
A healthy reputation
Reputations are fragile and easily dashed. All the more so in the age of social media. (more…)
Seeing the danger is the first step
People can see it’s bad. They know the NHS is in trouble. If asked, most will agree that a slight hike in income tax – hypothecated to the NHS – is acceptable and necessary. They know staff are working too hard, for too long. They know it is becoming harder to get timely treatment. (more…)
Physician Associates: Death Row for the Family Doctor?
It is clear that doctors in our NHS are increasingly unhappy and the workforce is crumbling fromdemoralisation and abandonment. This situation has been gestating for many years. Government and planners have hoped to substantially remedy this problem by depressurising doctors by delegating substantially more of their workload to other staff and agencies. This ‘substantially more’….
Hard times, hard choices
Anything as complex, large and difficult as a national health service will have problems. The greatest mistake anyone could make is to assume the NHS is itself the problem. (more…)
Whistleblowers’ Review – evidence must be asked for
The government’s Review of the whistleblowing framework was long overdue before the events at the Countess of Chester Hospital became known in all their terrible and harrowing detail. (more…)
NHS 75: will we have any happy returns?
As our NHS shows increasing signs of its own sickness, many are calling for more funds, staffing and technology. These may be necessary but are certainly not sufficient. What else of importance are we missing? (more…)
75 years on
I never knew my grandmother. She died from cervical cancer, 13 years before I was born. She died in agony, because the family could not afford medicine or dressings to relieve her pain. (more…)
The fight of your life
We have been saying the NHS is under serious threat for so long now it gives no pleasure to see it happening on such a scale that you can’t avoid it. The long-awaited Workforce Plan promises much but is long overdue – we welcome that, but ask: look at the record. (more…)
Why have things gone so wrong? And what can we do about it?
David Zigmond, a member of DFNHS’s Executive Committee, summarises his thoughts, drawing on five decades of experience as a frontline doctor (more…)