Remote healthcare in the COVID-19 pandemic

This editorial published online in the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics near the beginning of the pandemic looked at issues and aspects to consider when conducting what they term...

Reversible diabetes

Balance in management of type 2 diabetes

Insulin resistance increases greatly in obese patients and those who have large amounts of fat around the waist. Locally, nationally and internationally a low carbohydrate diet has demonstrated...

A proposed taxonomy for population-level prescription use patterns

The authors began by acknowledging that a drug's benefit-risk balance depends on the situation in which it is applied. It is recognised that evidence and patient-level data are often insufficient to...

Concordance and non-compliance: a psychological perspective

Non-compliance is not a new thing within the world of prescribing but a census on its causes is still hard to find and views on its origins vary from the psychological, social or cultural (Broekmans...

Fresh and familiar challenges greet us in 2021

wrote my first draft of this editorial before Christmas, apprehensively waiting with bated breath to see just how the lift of restrictions for the holiday season would affect us going forward. Of...

Drug Breakdown: carbamazepine

Day 1: #carbamazepine was discovered mid 1950s as a tricyclic compound related to imipramine and was found to be effective for trigeminal neuralgia. Animal studies showed an anti-epileptic effect,...

Care continues to shine in difficult times

This has been a truly exceptional year for the world, the UK, the NHS and us as healthcare professionals. For me 2020 has been a true year of ups and downs and I mean this personally and...

Treating and preventing COVID-19: how close are we?

The antibody drug, Regeneron, was partially credited for successfully treating outgoing American President Donald Trump. It has now received emergency approval in the US for use in people who have...

COVID-19, coagulopathy and clotting abnormalities

This review article from Tokyo in Japan was published in March 2020 and outlined what was being seen by clinicians dealing with ill patients in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (Iba et al,...

The ethics of COVID-19 vaccine trials

Prescribing within clinical toxicology

Regional NHS poisoning treatment centres were first established in the 1960s following the Atkins and Hill reports, which highlighted significant concerns regarding poisoning management nationally...

Achieving and maintaining competency as a nurse independent non-medical prescriber

‘Prescribing by a practitioner (eg doctor, dentist, nurse, pharmacist) responsible and accountable for the assessment of patients with undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions and for decisions about the...

The work goes on

Keeping infant vaccination ‘on the agenda’ as we enter a busy winter period

This winter is likely to be a particularly challenging one for the NHS. As the wider healthcare community continues to pull together to fight COVID-19 and minimise the impact of a range of infectious...