Does your doctor really care about you? Do you have time to care about your patients in the middle of all the red tape? Can we claw back tender, loving healthcare before losing sight of what it is?
The medical machine is spinning out of control. Making the NHS better is about people, not about politics and posturing. It’s about recognising that, well or ill, we’re in it together.
Being promised we’ll be able to choose our hospital tomorrow is cold comfort when fighting to see a doctor today. From the pitfalls of communication to waiting lists, MMR to MRSA, this book discusses things we know of but may know little about; the ins and outs, drivers and obstacles, to treating each other well. The first half is a novel, an engaging story set across doctors’ surgeries, cafes, pubs and homes. A story about a woman with a neurological illness who also has depression, her conscientious consultant who worries too much about everything while his GP wife anguishes over MMR, an oncologist with terminal cancer, a hospital manager with a heart, even a love-life. A series of accessible, informative essays then explores the ‘big issues’ that beset the NHS today, from the political football of choice, to jargon, mistakes and superbugs.
Essential and enjoyable reading for anyone who uses or works in healthcare, this book argues that it can be rescued, become human again, if we all help.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
There's hope
Both sides of the story
Injecting humanity
Communicating care
Too busy to care?
Part One
The main characters
The way it is
Men at the top
Even men at the top
Red tape and sticking plaster
Better than cure?
Common ground
Just nonsense
Buyer beware
Family matters
What goes around
Part Two: a glossary, of sorts
Choice
Clinical trials (see Testing treatments)
Communication
Copying letters
Drug trials (see Testing treatments)
Error (see Medical error)
Evidence-based medicine
Expert patients
Jargon
Language (see Communication; Jargon)
Managers
Medical error (also known as Swiss cheese ... )
MMR (Measles, mumps and rubella vaccine)
Money
MRSA (see Superbugs)
Obesity
Postcode care
Prevention
Private medicine
Rationing (see Choice; Postcode care)
Regulation
Star ratings (see Targets)
Superbugs
Targets
Testing treatments
Trusts
Waiting
Working hours
Postscript: a sting in the tale
About the Author :
Sophie Petit-Zeman migrated from research in neuroscience and mental health to communications and journalism, focusing on science, medicine and social care. An award-winning writer, at times patient and carer, she has also worked in the NHS, private and voluntary sectors, in the UK and abroad. Sophie is a council member of the Brain and Spine Foundation and, after completing this book, was appointed Director of Public Dialogue at the Association of Medical Research Charities
Review :
'This important original book ought to be in every doctor's waiting room...[It] is written with a hopeful, generous, meditating intelligence: doctors and patients need imagination. And be the end of the novel, many of the characters felt like friends.' - The Observer
'Her book is definately a quality learning vehicle, just what the doctor ordered. And the patients, too.' - The Observer
'This is a book which is stimulating, informative and fun to read.' - Camden New Journal
'This book takes the conversations we’re all having about the NHS and goes the next step. Reading it is like being at a really good dinner party.'
'A brilliant device – mixing fiction and fact – this book really works.'
'It made me laugh, cry and think, so it did what it’s supposed to.'
