Medical Centre

Recently, the UK Government announced that offers of first and second Covid-19 vaccinations will come to an end after 30 June. Ahead of World Immunisation Week, Professor Azeem Majeed from the School of Public Health discusses this major change in national vaccine policy, and why it’s important to stay up to date with Covid-19 booster vaccinations. The announcement from NHS England that first and second doses of Covid-19 vaccines will no longer be offered to adults after 30 June 2023 signifies a significant change in national vaccine policy. We will all remember the start of the Covid-19 vaccination programme in December 2020, the rapid rollout of vaccines by the NHS, and the enthusiasm for vaccination amongst most sections of the population. Vaccination curbed the impact of Covid-19, leading to large falls in hospital admissions and deaths, and allowing the government to end Covid-19 restrictions. We are now though entering a new phase in which Covid-19 vaccination will be restricted ...

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is a method used in health economics and healthcare planning to compare the costs and benefits of different healthcare interventions. CEA is particularly important in public health because it helps policymakers and healthcare providers to make informed decisions about which interventions to prioritise and invest in.  Vaccination is a good example of why incremental CEA is important. Vaccination programmes can be expensive, and policymakers need to know if the benefits of vaccination outweigh the costs. Incremental CEA can help answer this question by comparing the costs and health outcomes of vaccination to other interventions, or to doing nothing at all.  There are many factors that can affect the cost-effectiveness of a public health intervention. These include the cost of the intervention, the effectiveness of the intervention, and the value of the health outcomes that are achieved (such as a reduction in hospital admissions or an improveme...

In a recent article in the British Medical Journal , I discuss where we are three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK and what broad comments can we make about the UK’s ongoing response to the pandemic. The UK is certainly in a better place now than it was in the first year of the pandemic; a period when many people became seriously unwell, resulting in significant pressures on the NHS and a very large number of deaths. One positive step is the creation of the UK Health Security Agency. This begins to address the weaknesses that arose in England’s health protection functions following the abolition of the Health Protection Agency in 2013 and is recognition that the UK needed a government organisation that was focused on health protection. However, the devolved nature of the UK means that some responsibilities for health protection lie with the UK government, while others lie with the national assemblies in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. This does create sco...

Multimorbidity is an emerging priority in healthcare due to associations with the ageing population, frailty, polypharmacy, health and social care demands. It affects 60–70% of adults and 80% of children with epilepsy. Our recent article in the journal Seizure discusses multimorbidity in people with epilepsy.  Neurodevelopmental conditions are commonly seen in children with epilepsy, while cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative conditions often afflict older people with epilepsy. Mental health problems are common across the lifespan. Genetic, environmental, social and lifestyle factors contribute to multimorbidity and its consequences. Multimorbid people with epilepsy are at higher risk of depression and suicide, premature death, suffer lower health-related quality of life, and require more hospital admissions and health care costs.  The best management of multimorbid people with epilepsy requires a paradigm shift from the traditional single disease-single comorbidity a...