The Darzi Review of the NHS

The Government had asked Lord Darzi, an academic surgeon at Imperial College London, to conduct an ‘independent’ review of the National Health Service. In September 2024, his 163-page document was published. While highlighting some of the major flaws in the NHS – long waiting lists, an increase in the number of avoidable deaths, poor productivity – HART’s Dr Gary Sidley finds Darzi’s proposed solutions trite and uninspiring, comprising little more than appeals for additional taxpayer funding and a ‘tilt towards technology’. It seems nothing has been learned from the increasingly evident major deficiencies in the NHS, powerfully illustrated by some of its counterproductive responses to the covid event. Unless you want just more of the same in the future, read Dr Sidley’s alternative proposals.

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6-month cardiac follow-up data finally arrives

In August 2021, the JCVI said they wanted to delay a decision about children’s covid vaccines until 6-month followup data was available on children from the US who had sustained vaccine-induced myocarditis. But instead of waiting, they passed the decision to the Chief Medical Officers, who decided the jabs would be good for children’s mental health! Well the data is now in and it is not encouraging.

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The Ickabog by JK Rowling: A Review

“What must happen for evil to get a grip on a person, or of a country, and what does it take to defeat it? Why do people choose to believe lies even on scant or non-existent evidence?” This was the foreward to JK Rowling’s account of life in the mythical country of Cornucopia. Our reviewer invites readers to think of any modern day parallels.

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Peer Review:

Peer review is a system used by scientists and clinicians to decide which primary research or secondary (review/commentary) content is worthy of being published. In theory it is a process of cumulative, collective knowledge that through publications is cascaded from experts to readers. But in practice things are not always what they seem!

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Does mother know best?

The cost-benefit decisions that drive NHS spending can be hard to reconcile. On one hand, loving parents face roadblocks from courts and medical experts when seeking life-saving treatments for their children. On the other, vast sums are spent on COVID-19 interventions, raising the question: What is a life truly worth, and who gets to decide? Shouldn’t loving parents have more say when the stakes are so high?

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Why do Monkeypox mRNA vaccines cause the same problems as Covid vaccines?

Here we reproduce a letter written to an MP by a constituent.

The letter raises concerns about the potential risks of approving future mRNA vaccines under a “platform authorisation” model whereby updates are assumed to be safe because the underlying methodology is considered safe – the way seasonal egg based influenza vaccines were regulated. This means the Monkeypox mRNA vaccines and others need not be authorised on a product-specific basis as discussed in a May 2024 MHRA Board meeting, but can piggy back on the claims made about the safety of covid vaccines. What could possibly go wrong?

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