How Does Access to Community Health Services for Older People Vary Across the Midlands?
Blog post
10th May 2024

Community health services provide invaluable support for older people with a range of health care needs. These services also keep local health systems working efficiently. 

Despite this importance, comparatively little is known about the scale and distribution of community services. The NHS may consequently fall short when it comes to monitoring and planning these services. 

Playing our part in conversations about death
Blog post
23rd April 2024

“Dad, why are all your ‘peptalks’ about death?”

Children can be a source of fundamental insight. They seem to specialise in feedback of the unvarnished, unmediated and fully caffeinated variety. The kind of feedback that cuts straight to it.

My youngest daughter, mid-way through our sunny walk down the hill to school, pressed on:

“And you wear black all the time. You look like a crow…”

Fundamental insight, and now fashion advice. This was quite the school run.

Need, demand, and supply of GP services: an old lens on an ever-present problem
Blog post
18th April 2024

About 20 years ago, I attended a lecture given by Andrew Stevens, a rather formidable and austere Professor of Public Health at the University of Birmingham.  He was setting out his epidemiologically based approach to health care needs assessment. He and his colleagues, James Raftery, Jonathan Mant, and Sue Simpson edited a series of books on the topic that sit on the shelf behind me1.  I refer to them on a regular basis.  They remain both grounding and inspirational reference material.

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