January 2004

Happy New Year! Hopefully this will be an important year for the development of high quality health services in Bristol.

There is to be a combined meeting of Med-Chi and BMA on Tuesday 30^th March 2004. The meeting itself will start at about 6.30 p.m. and last until about 8.30 p.m. followed by a supper, available by pre-booking. The provisional title of the meeting is The future of Bristol Health Care. Speakers will include Geoff Scaife, Chief Executive of the SHA and Hugh Ross. We intend that there will be ample time for questions. Details will be posted on our website shortly and will be included in the February edition.

Sony used to advertise that in Tokyo they had more engineers available on Saturday and Sunday than during the week. They claimed that this was because the public demanded more help with their broken down televisions and videos at the weekend than at other times. They had listened to the consumer. A few years ago your editor became very ill on a Saturday afternoon in Napier, New Zealand. A call to the local telephone exchange revealed that the town\'s medical centre was open on Saturdays and Sundays from 7am to 9pm and was staffed by doctors, nurses, a radiographer and a pharmacist. He received excellent attention at the cost of £28! The fact is that there appears to be as much, if not more, demand for medical services at the weekend than there is during the week. The question arises as to whether those planning Health Care Services in Bristol in 2004 recognise this. We are indebted to Michael Whitfield for an in-depth study of this subject. We hope to return to it in a few months time when the local situation is clearer.

We are grateful to Stuart Glover for a concise summary of the past and present position related to HIV infection. Uncertainty is one of the characteristic features of disease incidence and prevalence. Who would have guessed 20 years ago that HIV and Aids would be requiring such large and increasing resources? The need for flexibility in planning Health Care Services is clear.

Bristol is extremely fortunate to have had the services of Stuart Glover who has lead the development of effective services for HIV patients over the last 20 years. This is not the most attractive of subjects. He has tackled it with characteristic enthusiasm and compassion.

Up to now the SHA has been regarded by many as being a shadowy and rather threatening organisation. Little has been known about it. However, this is changing. The SHA has now produced a comprehensive first annual report that provides much useful information. We have only summarised some of the salient points on this website and strongly recommend that the report itself should be read.

Lastly, we are delighted to publish an appreciation of Brian Cummings written by David Sandeman. This was first published on a website dedicated to Brian Cummings and we are grateful to David for allowing us to reproduce his contribution here. Brian Cummings was a most remarkable man and made contributions in many fields of neurosurgery and elsewhere. He was a giant personality and is greatly missed in Bristol.

We are indebted to Michael Whitfield for two important contributions this month. We are very pleased to publish his Presidential address to the BMA entitled \'Is there a cure for dogmatic doctors?\', (the text can be found in the \'Your Say\' section of this website). This address challenges some of our most ingrained beliefs and prejudices. Just as importantly he describes his involvement with an important project in India where children are trained to promote better hygiene in an experiment which showed that their intervention changed the behaviour of the villagers.