Just ghosted an opinion piece for CIHM which has gone up on Guardian professional. Do we really want patients to think of themselves purely as customers, with the potential for footstamping and tantrums that entails? It may have some short-term benefits but ultimately it encourages mindless individualism, the last thing the NHS needs. What is needed is true patient engagement and consumerist discourse works against that. Check the full argument out - by CIHM's brilliant Becky Malby and Irwin Turbitt - here.
The Truth About Stanley is a short drama made to raise money for homelessness. My partner Tom Clark produced it and I did the PR. We managed to get it on the front page of guardian.co.uk, and covered in the news section of The Observer. It also got a five star review in the Independent on Sunday - an unprecedented achievement for a short film. Saba Salman compares Stanley to Cathy Come Home on her blog, The Social Issue. But the wonderful Cathy is in the realist tradition, the filmic equivalent of a Zola novel about coalminers. The homelessness was triggered by bad luck and a bad system - a work injury and no safety nets. Stanley is much more psychological. It looks at why people choose a life on the streets. It is a film for this age of the mind, where we have virtual lives on the internet, neuroscience is revealing the potential of our brains in old age, and charities like Kidsco reach right into the psyches of traumatised children. I believe Sta...
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