Health and social care policy

HIV/AIDS taught us the importance of public sex education. Now, COVID-19 teaches us the need for public death education.

“Well, they’re obviously over-stretched and under-staffed, aren’t they?  It’s not personal care any more is it, you’re more like a number, they get you in and get you out.”

Ten have been whittled down to two and it is now for the membership of the Conservative Party to decide whether they want Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as their next leader and, subsequently, the next Prime Minister. Much of the focus of this campaign has been on the future of the UK’s relationship with the European Union. Are we leaving on 31 October or not? Deal or no deal? What exactly are WTO terms? Can I still go to Majorca for my summer holidays?

One of my least favourite moments of my otherwise very enjoyable MDT meeting is when we come to discuss the new admissions on our rehab ward that week. There are two types of transfer which seem to be increasingly common. Let’s call them Mr Smith and Mr Jones…

Nosokinetics – a great word upon which to hang the peg of my understanding and progress.  Publication of an associated bi-monthly newsletter had provided a repository of published analysis and knowledge related to the subject. Brilliant thinks I; and with glee noted all that had been written and provided to those interested up to 2010. Then the newsletter stopped and Nosokinetics apparently lost to the sands of time!

It’s traditional to start any piece of writing on older people with frailty with a reminder that there are a lot of them, and that there will be a lot more of them in the future. This will not come as a surprise to frequenters of the British Geriatrics Society website.