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Stories by James Munro

• Features

  • NHS here, how can I help you?

    Two new services will transform the NHS – and New Labour’s re-election chances – for good or ill, argues James Munro

  • Working for nobody

    With the NHS reforms now five years old, James Munro measures the promises of the reformers against the reality of the results. Are they really ‘working for patients’?

  • Number crunching

    Are the nation’s molars up to the daily grind? James Munro has been chewing over the figures

  • Yes, Minister?

    You may be unhappy about the state of the NHS, but what would you do as health minister? healthmatters readers and writers take up the challenge

• Interviews

  • One minute interview

    Danny Kushlick is director of the Transform Drug Policy foundation

  • One minute interview

    Angela Mawle is chief executive of the UK Public Health Association

  • Doctor in the House

    Dr Richard Taylor, the new and very independent MP for Wyre Forest, speaks exclusively to healthmatters

  • Opposition guaranteed

    As New Labour’s modernisation of the NHS falters, what big ideas do the Conservatives have in store? Shadow health minister Liam Fox spoke exclusively to healthmatters

  • Improving health by any means possible

    Britain’s first minister for public health, Tessa Jowell, spoke exclusively to healthmatters on the government’s strategy for public health

  • Frank talking on health inequality

    After the storm over the possibility of patient charges, what else does Labour’s health team have in store? Secretary of State Frank Dobson spoke exclusively to healthmatters on the new emphasis in government health policy

• Columns

  • Ten things you never knew about… caffeine

  • Ten things you never knew about… tobacco

  • Ten things you never knew about… European healthcare

  • Ten things you never knew about… aspirin

  • Ten things you never knew about… ginseng

• News

  • Labour’s plans for NHS meet strong protest

  • Global pressure leads to falling drug prices

  • PFI protest puts a new doctor in the house

  • ‘Dismay’ at lack of tobacco legislation

  • In brief

  • Global health is the big issue, says Medact

  • NHS watchdogs survive to bark another day

  • Debate begins on Labour’s health strategy

  • NHS trusts increasingly turn to private earnings

  • Health costs of cars should be paid by the drivers

  • In brief

  • Nursing recruitment crisis

  • Violence against women has become a global public health problem

  • Rise in prescription fees intensifies the charges debate

  • Poor management is a key health issue, say NHS staff

  • Public believes in free health care but fears it will be lost

  • NHS needs ‘a new constitution’

  • In brief

  • January’s green paper must win back the support of public health activists

  • New moves to reduce teenage pregnancies

  • Smoke-free public places are expected soon

  • Public involvement should be backed by new rights

  • BSE: the Ministry of Agriculture ‘cannot be trusted’

  • Crime and public health under investigation

  • In brief

  • Anti-smoker campaigners find a cause for celebration

  • Drug companies offering ‘freebies’ face prosecution

  • Concerns over likely short and long term effects of the PFI on the NHS

  • CHCs are looking out for the user’s views in GP commissioning

  • Poverty threatens the health of young people

  • Those policies so far

  • New figures show London’s health services under increasing strain

  • Danger: modern management may damage your health

  • Spectre of child malnutrition looms here, warns charity

  • Majority of GPs ‘disenchanted’ with reforms

  • New government must tackle homelessness for mental health’s sake

  • Local pay isn’t helping low paid NHS staff

  • Equality of age of consent for gay and heterosexual men

  • Concerns over independence of new food safety body

  • In brief

  • NHS abortions are ‘effectively means-tested’

  • A&E pressure builds as beds are closed

  • Equity in primary health care

  • Changes in primary care put Labour on the defensive

  • NHS ‘could be run by transnationals’

  • Inequality in child accident deaths is increasing

  • Don’t commercialise the NHS, warn US doctors

  • In brief

  • Moves to stub out tobacco subsidies meet resistance

  • Travellers’ access to health care is ‘tenuous’

  • Private sector struggles to control costs

  • In brief

  • Workplace health ‘must be a priority for Labour’

  • APH calls for public spending to relieve poverty

  • How many Londoners are dying for one of these?..

  • Academics call for explicit ‘menu’ of NHS services

  • More than skin deep...

  • Children’s health will worsen unless aid policies change

  • Pressure mounts for tobacco advertising ban

  • In brief

  • Campaigners call for debate on ‘intelligence gene’ research

  • Growth in private insurance undermines support for the NHS

  • Local authorities and the NHS ‘abandon elderly care’

  • In brief

  • Transport policy changes needed to fight heart disease

  • Water-metered families risk ill health to save money

  • Behind bars...

  • The ‘primary care-led NHS’ need not be fundholding, say commissioning GPs

  • Think-tank calls for NHS democracy

  • In brief

  • In brief

  • Bus and lorry drivers are heading for poor health

  • Health authorities make equity of access their goal access their goal

  • Women suffer from male stereotypes of heart disease

  • NHS overheads have doubled, says consultants’ association

  • In brief

  • A ‘greenprint’ for survival in 2020

  • King’s Fund calls for political will and practical steps to tackle health inequalities

  • Nurses’ pay will go ‘back to the future’

  • NHS waiting times grow while surgeons work for the rich

  • In brief

  • Inequality set to widen within the NHS itself

  • Health experts call for changes in housing policy

  • In brief

  • Parents are ‘happy with school sex education’

  • NHS staff united against local pay deals

  • Dentists refuse to bite on ‘salaried service’ proposals

  • In brief

  • Skill mix reviews risk neglecting quality of care, warns UNISON

  • Water cut-offs are bad for public health, says BMA

  • Battles brewing over local NHS pay schemes

  • NHS internal market is an ‘uncontrolled monster’

  • In brief

  • Confusion over the place of health promotion

  • AIDS vaccine trials raise widespread ethical concern

  • Busy streets may harm health

  • In brief

  • Difficulties arranging hospital admission ‘have doubled since NHS reforms’

  • Water metering to benefit the well off

  • Sexual health care by GPs limited by lack of choice and condoms

  • New campaign to stub out EC tobacco subsidies

  • Directors speak up for public health

  • In brief

  • Safety of ultrasound questioned

  • NHS beds for NHS patients

  • In brief

  • Dysentery linked to water cut-offs

  • Cost of visiting sick children causes hardship, says new campaign

  • In brief

  • Public debate required on sex selection

  • New study shows UK among lowest spenders on health in EC

  • In brief

  • A guide to the Newspeak

  • So how are the reforms going?

  • Health of schoolchildren put ‘at risk’

  • In brief

  • Snag on fags gag: UK drags

  • Snag on fags gag: UK drags

  • Companies ‘reckless’ on safety

  • Ten things you wish you’d seen in The Health of the Nation

  • Surgical price war

  • Auntie starts them young…

  • ’Rights, not charity’

  • GIFT or rip-off?

  • Condom capping

  • In brief

  • Donors gain a voice

  • Oh gums!

  • Cracking the drugs code

  • US makes tobacco top target

  • Ballots say no to NHS white paper

  • Health For All cash call

  • Eye-test figures plummet

  • EC threat to therapies

  • Ten things you never knew about… NHS pay

  • Dampness can damage your health

  • Emergency — dial 1992

  • When it comes to the crunch

• Reviews

  • The Tobacco Atlas

    Judith Mackay and Michael Eriksen
    WHO, 2002

  • The Investigator’s Handbook

    Centre for Public Services, 2003

  • Hunger from the inside

    Anna Watson
    Sustain, 2002

  • Things done in our name

    ADVANCE OF THE QUANGO STATE
    Chris Skelcher, Stuart Weir and Lynne Wilson
    Local Government Information Unit, 2000, £15.00

  • 1066 and all that

    A CHRONOLOGY OF STATE MEDICINE, PUBLIC HEALTH, WELFARE AND RELATED SERVICES IN BRITAIN, 1066-1999
    Michael D Warren
    Faculty of Public Health Medicine, 2000, £15.00

  • Why PFI should go

    PRIVATE FINANCE IN HEALTH CARE: WHY NOT
    Ben Griffith
    NHS Consultants Association, 2000, £3.00

  • Smoking memos

    DENIAL & DELAY: the political history of smoking and health, 1951-1964
    David Pollock
    Action on Smoking and Health, 1999

  • View from the top

    THE POLITICS OF NHS REFORM 1988-87: metaphor or reality?
    Chris Ham
    King’s Fund, 2000

  • IT doesn’t add up

    RETHINKING IT AND HEALTH
    Jo Lenaghan (ed)
    IPPR, 1998, £7.50

  • A scrapbook of the NHS

    HEADLINE HEALTH: a Health Service Journal history of the NHS
    Wendy Moore & Georgina Bryon (eds)
    Emap Healthcare, 1998, £13.99

  • Easy on the jargon

    DICTIONARY OF EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE
    Alain Li Wan Po
    Radcliffe Medical Press, 1998, £16.50

  • Plenty of argument

    WHO CARES? The great British health debate
    Oliver Morgan
    Radcliffe Medical Press, 1998, £18.50

  • Beyond coherence

    BEYOND RESTRUCTURING
    Sholom Glouberman (ed)
    King’s Fund, 1996, £17.50

  • Good choice

    Evidence-based patient choice
    Tony Hope
    King’s Fund, 1996

  • Stories from the trenches

    WHO CARES? TRUE STORIES OF THE NHS REFORMS
    Peter Bruggen
    Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1997, £12.00

  • Budgets for all by the year 2000

    Purchaser plurality in UK health care
    Nicholas Mays and Jennifer Dixon
    King’s Fund, 1996
    A review of innovations in primary health care
    Lyn Harrison and Hilary Neve
    The Policy Press, 1996, £14.95

  • Can HP be PC?

    The Sociology of health promotion: critical analyses of lifestyle, consumption and risk
    Robin Bunton, Sarah Nettleton, Roger Burrows (eds) Routledge, 1995, £13.99

  • Say it in Spanish

    Say it in Spanish: a guide for health care professionals
    EV Joya, ME Villanueva
    WB Saunders, 1996, £11.00

  • Heartfelt but hazy

    The invisible hospital and the secret garden: an insider’s commentary on the NHS reforms
    John Spiers
    Radcliffe Medical Press, 1995, £18.50

  • Beveridge rides again

    The five giants: a biography of the welfare state
    Nicholas Timmins
    HarperCollins, £9.99

  • An eye on the capital

    London Monitor 1996
    Sean Boyle and Richard Hamblin (eds)
    King’s Fund, 1996, £9.95

  • Medics behaving badly

    The incompetent doctor: behind closed doors
    Marilynn M Rosenthal
    Open University Press 1995, £12.99

  • Cut it out!

    Private eye, heart amd hip: surgical consultants, the NHS and private medicine
    John Yates
    Churchill Livingstone, 1995, £14.95

  • Looking backwards to the future

    Feasible Socialism: The national Health Service past, present and future
    Julian Tudor Hart
    Socialist Health Association, 1994

  • Too few hands on today’s pumps

    The Epidemiological Imagination
    Edited by John Ashton
    Open University Press, 1994, £12.99

  • A piece of the jigsaw

    EVALUATING THE NHS REFORMS
    Ed Ray Robinson and Julian Le Grand
    King’s Fund Institute, 1994

  • A cure for apoplexy

    Tobacco in history: the cultures of dependence
    Jordan Goodman
    Routledge, 1993

  • Herding cats in the NHS

    CONTROLLING HEALTH PROFESSIONALS: THE FUTURE OF WORK AND ORGANIZATION IN THE NHS
    Stephen Harrison and Christopher Pollitt
    Open University Press, 1994, £12.99

  • Counting on children

    Children, teenagers and health: the key data
    Caroline Woodroffe, Myer Glickman, Maggie Barker and Chris Power
    Open University Press, 1993

  • Private choices in public

    GOING PRIVATE: WHY PEOPLE PAY FOR THEIR HEALTH CARE
    Michael Calnan, Sarah Cant and Jonathan Gabe
    Open University Press, 1993, £10.99

  • The return of the ration book

    Research Paper 6: Priority setting in purchasing
    Research Paper 8: Rationing dilemmas in health care
    National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts, 1993

  • Access to audit

    USER INVOLVEMENT IN MEDICAL AUDIT
    Nikki Joule
    Greater London Association of Community Health Councils, 1992, £7

  • Middling management

    CONTINUITY AND CRISIS IN THE NHS
    Ray Loveridge and Ken Starkey (eds)
    Open University Press, 1992

  • Buddy, can you paradigm?

    PLANNED MARKETS AND PUBLIC COMPETITION: STRATEGIC REFORM IN NORTHERN EUROPEAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS
    Richard B Saltman And Casten Von Otter
    Open University Press, 1992

  • Treatments for foreign bodies

    MEDICINE AND CULTURE: NOTIONS OF HEALTH AND SICKNESS
    Lynn Payer
    Gollancz, 1990, £4.99

  • A tale of tribes and tribulations

    CULTURE, HEALTH AND ILLNESS
    Cecil Helman
    Wright, 1991

  • The health of the planet…

    HEALTH THROUGH PUBLIC POLICY: THE GREENING OF PUBLIC HEALTH
    ed Peter Draper
    Green Print, 1991, £9.99

  • Sick brick

    SICK BUILDING SYNDROME: CAUSES, EFFECTS AND CONTROL
    London Hazards Centre, £4.50

  • Rights in old age

    RIGHTS AND RISK
    A J Norman
    Centre for Policy on Ageing, £4.00

• Editorial

  • Why the doctors don’t know best

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