by Hackney GP Michael FitzpatrickThe old medical adage “prevention is better than cure” has been extended from infectious diseases to diverse social problems, such as obesity, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and antisocial behaviour, all supposedly raging at epidemic proportions. Although the conviction that early intervention yields better outcomes has a common sense appeal, it is [...]
by Dr Mike Fitzpatrick The history of medicine reveals that doctors resort to recommending diets when they have no effective treatments – a state of affairs that prevailed from antiquity until the 1930s. Dietary protocols for numerous conditions, from insulin-dependent diabetes to pernicious anaemia, have disappeared with the development of new drugs or other forms [...]
Two apparently unrelated stories struck me when I read last week’s Community Care (29 April 2010). Both left me with strong feelings. Both deserve further comment. First there was the tribute, following his premature death, to David Morris, longstanding senior policy adviser on disability to the London Mayor.
by Bob Holman Unlike Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron does acknowledge the existence of poverty. The credit rests with Iain Duncan Smith whose Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) contains staff in contact with people in deprived areas.
by Richard Humphries Many hope that White Paper ‘Building the National Care Service‘ published last week will become a key staging post towards a reformed social care system. If I had to choose a Beatles’ song to describe the journey so far, it would be ‘The Long and Winding Road’ – and the destination [...]
by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick Early commentary on the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and StatisticalManual (DSM V) of the American Psychiatric Association – due forpublication in 2013 – has focused on the new range of sexual disorders.These include “absexuality” (the Mary Whitehouse syndrome of excitementat being appalled at displays of pornography), “hypersexuality” (theaffliction of Tiger [...]
Do children in care really need social pedagogues, asks Michael Fitzpatrick, himself the parent of a looked-after child on the verge of transition to adult services According to the draft guidance on “the physical and emotional health and well-being of looked after children and young people” produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical [...]
by Allan Norman One of the first decisions of the new UK Supreme Court L, R (on the application of) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2009] UKSC 3 (29 October 2009) will offer some welcome reprieve to social care workers and would-be social care workers who have discovered the devastating effects of “information [...]
by Allan Norman You might have thought from the media coverage of the GSCC between its discovery of a backlog of conduct cases and its sacking of its Chief Executive, that its problem was that it wasn’t tough enough, and the solution was that in future it would need to be tougher. Neither is the [...]
by Ray Jones, professor of social work, Kingston University and formerly director of social services in Wiltshire Community Care has been ahead of the game. In a post Icontributed in February it was recommended that following the ‘BabyPeter’ media frenzy which started a year ago this month there should benew performance indicators for children’s services [...]
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