Tag Archives: mental health

Understanding Bipolar

Bipolar disorder refers to a mood disorder affecting approximately one in every 100 adults. For those people, severe mood disturbances – either highly elevated or strongly depressed — can make normal functioning extremely difficult.

Why did no one foresee these problems years ago?

The scandal of ageism in the NHS must end
As demography changes our society, the institutions and services we rely on must also change to meet the needs of an older population. Nowhere is this truer than in healthcare.
By Paul Burstow, Care Services Minister

In 1948, when the NHS was formed, a person’s life expectancy was a shade over 65. Hospitals were geared to treat infectious disease, industrial accidents and emergency cases.

NHS reforms will return health service to 1930s

NHS reforms will return health service to 1930s

The government’s NHS reforms will return medical care to the standards of the 1930s and 40s, a leading doctor has warned.

By Laura Roberts 8:00AM GMT 07 Mar 2011
Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA’s hospital consultant committee, said proposed changes would create an “increasingly tattered safety net” for people suffering from complex illnesses such as heart failure, diabetes or obesity.

He claimed that for patients in some parts of the country, care would return to “what we thought we had left behind when we founded the NHS in 1948”.

Private healthcare firms could “cherry pick” patients with the simplest conditions to treat while local hospitals could face closure if they are forced to compete with independent, profit-driven healthcare providers, he said.

This would leave the NHS as a “provider of last resort” for patients denied treatment by private practises because their conditions are too expensive to deal with.