Most people use Facebook and other social networking websites to (admittedly or not) impress their friends by posting pictures of themselves on holiday in Ibiza's top clubs, winning an award, climbing sand dunes, or just getting slightly tipsy at...

When practice-based commissioning launched in 2005 it was instantly hailed as the solution to all the NHS's ills in England. The term ‘PBC' quickly slipped into the DoH's lexicon of acronyms, as ministers claimed it would unleash innovation...

It still amazes me that, although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects 3.7 million people in the UK, and is expected to become the world's biggest killer by 2020, barely anyone I know (outside of the office) has heard of it. Emphysema...

Healthcare Republic rubbed shoulders with 160 or so nurse practitioners at their annual conference in Liverpool on Friday and Saturday - and what a fine setting it was. The main hall at Aintree Racecourse is actually on the fourth floor of the main stand...

Not content with nationalising the banks, Gordon Brown is looking to take control of our most intimate medical details. He thinks that it's perfectly okay to allow researchers direct access to patient records in order to identify and contact candidates...

Last night, a bevy of medical hacks, PRs and some of the great and the good from the world of medicine gathered together for the annual jamboree that is the Medical Journalism Awards. It was a good night for GP . News reporter Tom Ireland scooped the...

Tomorrow I'm reporting from the annual Nurse Practitioner Association conference in Liverpool. Chair Jenny Aston hopes in her welcome letter that we ‘will all go home refreshed and inspired'. She describes the two-day conference at Aintree Racecourse...

Another day, another initiative to combat obesity. Sometimes feels as if we're fighting a losing battle against the bulging waistlines of the UK population. Same old advice, same old results. I therefore empathise with the reaction of Lib Dems health...

I don't often read The Economist . I usually do to either show off on the tube or because it's the only magazine left on the coffee table (my partner is a subscriber) after a frantic trip to the recycling bin downstairs. But I have to admit that...

So another private provider pulls out of running a surgery - where is their commitment to patients and the good old NHS? Just seven months in to the contract and Atos Origin have given up and will be leaving at the end of the year. Until then, they will...

You may have read elsewhere this week that Walsall GP Dr Muhammad Siddiq was suspended for 12 months by a GMC fitness-to-practise panel after sending a letter to Pulse in July 2007. Pulse did not publish the letter but used comment from it in a later...

While reading the news yesterday I spotted a story about safety fears over nanocosmetics . For those who don't know, nanocosmetics make use of nanotechnology - where atoms and molecules are manipulated - in order to make skincare products, such as...

Since ‘patient choice' is the oft-repeated slogan of the DoH, it seems only right that the ban on topping up NHS care, by paying for drugs not available on the health service, is being lifted . Existing rules mean that people are excluded from the...

If you are a regular Facebook user, you probably have felt the same kind of "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" feeling in recent months, as the initial buzz over the social networking website has slowly faded. Now in its fifth year of...

As the US election campaigns at last come to a close (please don't let there be a recount), many Democrats are reportedly visiting their doctors complaining of stress, anxiety, exhaustion etc. They are racked with fear that the Republicans will pull...