The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2103
Helen Salisbury
{"title":"Helen Salisbury: GPs versus hairdressers? Streeting has no idea","authors":"Helen Salisbury","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2103","url":null,"abstract":"The row about online access to GP services continues.1 In April it was agreed that GPs would keep online portals open in their core hours, but a six month delay was put in place. This was so that NHS England could develop measures to prevent surgeries being overwhelmed—and, most importantly, to ensure that clinically urgent cases weren’t missed. Last week Wes Streeting, the health secretary, claimed that safeguards were now in place to prevent urgent and emergency requests coming by this online route.1 This is not true. There are no safeguards. Simply putting a disclaimer on your website is not effective: even if patients read it, they can be poor …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"348 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2101
Joseph J Amon, Shatha Elnakib
{"title":"Testimony, advocacy, and the public health effect of genocide","authors":"Joseph J Amon, Shatha Elnakib","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2101","url":null,"abstract":"Medical community must play its part in ending atrocities In 2000, JAMA published a commentary by Willis and Levy calling for action to ensure recognition of the public health impact of genocide.1 The genocide it was reflecting on was in Rwanda, where over the course of roughly 100 days, between 800 000 and one million people, predominantly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists.2 The commentary challenged the notion of medical neutrality and claimed an important role for the medical and public health community in educating the public and policy makers and engaging in advocacy to prevent and stop genocide. Yet a quarter of a century later, we have not been able to prevent or stop the genocide unfolding now in Gaza. On 16 September 2025, an independent commission operating under the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report describing the legal framework for determining that a genocide was occurring and finding sufficient evidence that one was happening in Gaza.3 The report draws on data from UN agencies, news sources, social media, court cases, and non-governmental organisation reports. The …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2080
Charly Gibson
{"title":"Jeremy John Stuart Gibson","authors":"Charly Gibson","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2080","url":null,"abstract":"Jeremy was born a wartime London evacuee in Arundel, West Sussex. After Tonbridge School he studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the Middlesex Hospital, London. After graduating he did house jobs at the Middlesex and Ipswich Hospital, and married Susan, a staff nurse at the Middlesex, in 1967. He initially pursued a career in surgery, returning to Cambridge to demonstrate anatomy, before …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"107 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2064
Scarlett McNally
{"title":"Scarlett McNally: Why I love our new operating theatres","authors":"Scarlett McNally","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2064","url":null,"abstract":"My trust has opened a brand new operating theatre complex. I’m pleasantly surprised by how much an updated environment and a fresh start have created new ways of working. It feels as though the new physical building has enabled pathways of care to be clarified and teams to flourish. I admit that I was sceptical. I thought that it would have been better to install some pre- and postoperative areas closer to the old operating theatres. But I was wrong. It’s helpful that the new operating building, with its integral assessment, admission, and recovery and day ward areas, is on the same site as the acute hospital, so patients can get medical support in an emergency and we can retain our excellent, experienced staff. This co-location is beneficial, and I’ve written before about how offsite “standalone” units for surgery …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2104
Bethanie Carney Almroth
{"title":"Plastic pollution is a worsening public health crisis, but there are solutions","authors":"Bethanie Carney Almroth","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2104","url":null,"abstract":"We need to put humans and the environment before corporate profits, writes Bethanie Carney Almroth Plastics have become a concern at the forefront of public environmental awareness campaigns and in political discussions. Nations of the world convened in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 2025 to negotiate a globally binding United Nations treaty intended to end plastic pollution across the full life cycle—from production to disposal.1 It had been three years since heads of state agreed on a mandate to create this historic treaty, but although the sixth round of negotiations took place in Geneva, they ended without agreement. Some view this as a complete failure, but I do not. There is hope—the undeniable weight of the scientific evidence emerged as one of the strengths in the treaty negotiations. Representatives from countries around the world rejected the plastics treaty draft as it did not align with the evidence and would not be able to fulfil the mandate to end plastic pollution. In …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2108
Elisabeth Mahase
{"title":"Pictured: Health workers killed in Gaza as \"devastating\" report shows an average of two killed every day.","authors":"Elisabeth Mahase","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2108","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"58 1","pages":"r2108"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145241030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2109
Luke Taylor
{"title":"Tobacco industry “fighting back” with new nicotine products, WHO warns, with more than 100 million people now vaping","authors":"Luke Taylor","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2109","url":null,"abstract":"One in five adults are still consuming tobacco and more than 100 million people are vaping as the industry targets young people to offset falling numbers of smokers, the World Health Organization has said. WHO’s latest report on global tobacco consumption1 analysed data from 195 countries and territories and quantified the world’s e-cigarette use for the first time. It found the number of tobacco users fell from 1.38 billion in the year 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024, with women quitting in greater numbers than men. Globally there are now 13% fewer tobacco users than at the turn of the century and when accounting for population growth there was a 27% drop in prevalence. Senior WHO officials praised progress in cutting smoking numbers, particularly in South East Asia, which accounted for more than half of the global fall. In 2000, 1 in 3 …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2088
J Stephen Morrison, Lawrence O Gostin
{"title":"Promise and gaps in America First strategy for global health","authors":"J Stephen Morrison, Lawrence O Gostin","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2088","url":null,"abstract":"Plans are based on credibility the Trump administration does not have Just before the 2025 UN General Assembly, US secretary of state Marco Rubio released the America First Global Health Strategy .1 The title openly clashes with long established global health values of multilateralism and international cooperation. But it is also a pivot away from the widespread chaos caused by the Trump administration’s swift and brutal actions, including disrupting the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), America’s signature foreign policy achievement, withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismantling USAID, ending funding for the Gavi vaccine alliance, and slashing the leadership, staff, and budget of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).2345 It seems to be a call for a return to order. While the first reaction might be scepticism, the new strategy launches a foreign assistance model based on reforms that experts have pushed for years—with little action and woeful political will. It comprises five key elements. First, it calls for negotiated partner country agreements (“compacts”) that specify upfront co-financing with timelines for transition to self-reliance and are reliably enforced. African and other leaders are already embracing “health sovereignty,” moving from acute dependence on western aid to resilient national health systems.67 That …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"106 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The BMJPub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1136/bmj.r2115
Adrian O'Dowd
{"title":"First year resident doctors in England vote to strike over job shortages.","authors":"Adrian O'Dowd","doi":"10.1136/bmj.r2115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r2115","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":"128 1","pages":"r2115"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145241028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}