Medical Centre

Our new paper in the British Medical Journal reviews the implementation of the UK’s Covid-19 vaccination programme. The programme is essential in keeping down the number of serious cases, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 and allowing society to function more normally.  Overall the programme performed well. But it’s important to address some common misconceptions about the programme. Firstly, the rapid implementation of the Covid-19 in vaccination in the UK was not due to Brexit. When the programme started, the UK had not finalised Brexit. Secondly, the vaccination programme was good and all those who supported the programme are to be congratulated for their efforts but it was not “world-leading” as some politicians have claimed. Many other countries have outperformed the UK in areas such as vaccine uptake.  One limitation of current vaccines is that although they are very successful in reducing the number of serious cases of covid-19, they are less effective in preve...

 The NHS is now starting to rollout flu vaccinations for eligible people. Although the public health focus since early 2020 has been very much on Covid-19, flu remains a major threat to vulnerable individuals and the NHS in the UK.  We have been fortunate that in the last few years, flu rates have been very low in the UK. However, there are signs from Australia that we may see much higher rates of flu in the UK this winter. Australia has seen its highest flu rates since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and this may be a predictor of what the UK may face during our own winter. Because flu rates have been low in recent years, this means that people will have less immunity from a previous infection. The end of Covid-19 control measures – such as face masks and social distancing  - combined with the return of normal social activities also increase the likelihood of a large flu outbreak this winter. This makes flu vaccination essential – particularly for the elderly, the cli...

It’s the time of year when academics – including myself - are marking MSc and MPH dissertations. Once again, I see many errors in how students write their dissertations. What are these errors and how can students avoid them to make their dissertations more readable? Spend time planning the outline of your dissertation with chapter headings and subsection headings for each chapter. Decide what key tables, figures and graphs you need to include to reinforce what is in the main text of your dissertation. Many students assume that longer words are “more scientific” and therefore preferable than shorter words. For example, using terms like perspiration rather than sweat or haemorrhage rather than bleed. Imagine if Churchill had written his speeches in this “more scientific” way.  Use shorter sentences when possible. Longer sentences are more difficult to read and can lead to the examiner missing the key points you are trying to make. The same applies to paragraphs – don’t make them too ...

Traditional face-to-face smoking cessation interventions may result in significant delays between the patient's decision to quit and access to effective pharmacological support or behavioural therapies. In a study published in the journal Public Health in Practice , we evaluated digital solution to streamline access to smoking cessation interventions This was the first attempt in the UK where a GP-led online portal with added functionality was used to streamline timely access to pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation using an asynchronous formal request for treatment. We evaluated the findings of a primary care pilot from two general practices in West London where 4337 patients who are registered as smokers were contacted with unique link to access the portal. Whereas smoking is the major avoidable cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the UK and internationally, there are surprisingly few examples of a patient-facing primary care led IT system to streamline the delivery o...