Category Archives: Policy Bits

Happy International Women’s Day!

The first thing I read this morning was a great Guardian article on how women’s rights seem to be regressing during the pandemic. This will come as no surprise to most women, who may have been affected disproportionately by any number of things, including home-schooling, choice of which businesses are prioritised for help, ways that earnings are calculated, maternity care conditions, or expectations that they will be the ones to take up caring roles. 

Women are not the only group to have been negatively affected during the pandemic. The Equality Act (2010) lists several protected characteristics, including age, disability, ethnicity… if you look down the list virtually every protected characteristic has been disadvantaged at this time. Whoever is doing Equality Impact Assessment on government policies is doing a shoddy job.

Continue reading

Too easy an excuse

Last Saturday’s front page Guardian was grim. “Revealed: just 1.5% of rape cases lead to summons.”

This refers to the number of reported rapes that result in a summons. The stat is worse than it was when, ten years ago, I was first involved in a piece of research which tried to better understand the huge attrition rate in rape cases.

At that time the stats were bad, only 6% of reported rapes went on to a successful prosecution. Today, those stats are even worse.

Continue reading

Psychology Gogglebox

There’s been a run of programmes about different sorts of mental health problem recently, and different ways of helping. I had a week where I watched lots of them: Louis Theroux on experiences of postnatal depression and psychosis, Alistair Campbell on depression, Nadiya Hussain on anxiety and David Harewood on psychosis.

Just as mental health is a spectrum, so is its coverage. The purpose and filming practices of these programmes are in stark contrast to reality TV shows that have also been in the news lately, in relation to their effects on participant mental health:  Jeremy Kyle’s show in particular, but also Love Island.

Continue reading

Wellbeing for all

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 18.28.22A new NHS framework promoting health and wellbeing in healthcare staff was launched mid-May.

The investment of time and resource to write this report is to be celebrated. The framework emphasises the importance of NHS staff wellbeing and gives some concrete ideas for improving working conditions and individual skills to cope with difficult work. These have the potential to be helpful.

However, the report ignores one of the key reasons why this document is needed in the first place: funding constraints. Continue reading

Cuts and knives

knife“This is a complex crime and you cannot arrest your way out of it,” said Amber Rudd this morning on Radio 4’s Today programme, as she talked about the rise in knife crime in young people in London.

I couldn’t agree more that arresting our way out of this is not the answer. But then what is? The rise of violent crime in London’s youth is complex, although sadly not surprising. Continue reading

Not enough mental health services to go round for young people

nspccOver 100,000 children referred to local mental health services in England have been rejected for treatment in the last two years. Figures requested from NHS Trusts by the NSPCC, released today, show that an average of 150 referrals a day are turned away from NHS children’s mental health services, despite Childline reporting record numbers of calls. From a total of 652,023 cases referred to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), 109,613 children were turned away. The NSPCC has called on Government to focus on early intervention to reduce numbers who reach crisis point. Continue reading

#notfunny

g2

I had a good laugh at the Guardian G2 headline the other day suggesting that the patriarchy might be dead. The cover had a load of pictures of the hashtag #metoo.

It’s really important that more people are speaking up about experiences of sexual abuse or harrassment, talking about the extent of the problem and trying to call it out for what it is – totally unacceptable. But I think difficulties we face around sex and gender, as a society, run too deep for a hashtag to overturn them. Continue reading

King’s Fund summary calls for focus on better value, not cost reduction

Productivity in the NHSA clear summary from the King’s Fund published this month outlines the findings from their “Better value in the NHS” full report. Responding to the recent call for £22 billion efficiency savings, it highlights the key point that: “focusing on the monetary value of the challenge risks missing the real essence of the task… which is about getting better value from the NHS budget.” Continue reading