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The scandal of NHS contracts with the independent healthcare sector

Since March 2020 it was sensible medical practice to consider making all possible beds in the NHS available to potentially admit ill patients with COVID-19. The expected admission rate was supposed to risk overwhelming the NHS, so independent sector facilities apparently volunteered and were then contracted to the NHS as priority, with full remuneration for their losses, and all private practitioners were effectively frozen out from seeing, admitting and operating on their own self pay patients.

Letter from Hong Kong (3 November 2020)

It is seven months since I wrote the first ‘Letter from Hong Kong’. The message then was simple: “Fear is okay, panic is not and wear masks”. It is one month since I wrote the last letter and that message? “Life goes on and will go on no matter what.”

Gross Negligence Manslaughter in Healthcare: The medico-legal dilemma (part 21) - Clinical practice guidelines and indictments

Because of liability issues there is a reluctance to make clinical practice guidelines (CPG) statutory requirements; that is to say, guidelines are ‘suggestions’, not ‘instructions’. And why is this important to this case?

First Scottish patients to benefit from new national Digital Dermatology pathway

Patients in Dumfries and Galloway and Greater Glasgow and Clyde will be the first to benefit from a new technology to allow faster diagnosis and assessment of skin conditions. Using a secure mobile phone app, the new national Digital Dermatology...

Volunteer Surgeon returns to UK to give prestigious Norman Rowe Lecture, 38 years from where vision for his lifework began

Dedicated surgeon, Mr Gary Parker, has spent almost four decades volunteering as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon for international healthcare charity, Mercy Ships. Earlier this year, Mr Parker returned to the UK to give the prestigious Norman Rowe Lecture on...

BMLA 2023 Annual Conference & Educational Courses

Navroz Singh (far right) with Nirmal and Vasant Oswal (second and third left) and the other recipients of the Vasant and Nirmal Oswal Trainee Scholarship. Navroz Singh, core surgical trainee at Kings College NHS Trust. This year’s British Medical Laser...