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Policy@Manchester Articles: Health and Social Care
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The toll of ‘Deaths of Despair’ in England

By and Filed Under: British Politics, Cities and Environment, Health and Care, Health and Social Care, Levelling up, Urban Posted:

In 2015, a phenomenon coined as ‘Deaths of Despair’ (DoD) emerged in the US, highlighting an alarming increase in mortality due to drugs, alcohol, and suicides, particularly among white men without a college education. Here, Christine Camacho and Dr Luke Munford explore the spatial patterning of these deaths in England, where an estimated 46,200 lives […]

An older woman participates in an arts group activity, painting a picture of a lighthouse

Joining the dots: assessing the roll out of social prescribing link workers in primary care

Paul Wilson headshot By Filed Under: Health and Care, Health and Social Care Posted:

Social prescribing is the referral of patients to non-clinical treatments – often for mental health needs and long-term health conditions. In 2019, the NHS Long Term Plan embedded the role of link workers to coordinate and refer patients from Primary Care Networks. But are the right areas getting the support they need – and how […]

Suicide prevention for veterans of the UK Armed Forces

Suicide prevention for veterans of the UK Armed Forces: adding to the national evidence base

By and Filed Under: All posts, Health and Social Care Posted:

There are no recent UK-wide studies, and comparatively few international ones, examining suicide in military veterans. This is despite increasing public concern about suicide and the mental health impact of serving in the UK Armed Forces, particularly following a period of intensive operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The recently published National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England sets […]

Old woman stacking shelves at a supermarket

Extending working lives – healthy ageing in the workplace

By Filed Under: All posts, Growth and Inclusion, Health and Social Care, UK economy Posted:

One in three workers in the UK are aged over 50 – with this figure set to rise in coming decades. Current government employment policy is to encourage over 50s to either to remain or return to work. However, the lasting impacts of COVID-19, along with caring, health, and work issues facing older workers, are […]

Tablets in therapeutic plastic packaging.

Culture shift: Tackling antimicrobial resistance from agriculture to operating table

By , , , and Filed Under: All posts, Health and Social Care, Science and Technology Posted:

In 2019, drug resistant microbial infections claimed more than 1.3 million lives, and over the next 25 years, it is expected that more people will die from drug resistant infections than from cancer. New antimicrobials and alternatives to traditional chemotherapeutic agents are urgently needed to treat infections that are resistant to all current therapies, alongside […]

Article cover image

What’s your language? Variation, dialect, interpreters and public services

Leonie Gaieser author imageRebecca Tipton By and Filed Under: All posts, Ethnicity, Health and Care, Health and Social Care, primary care services Posted:

As our public services face increasing linguistic diversity, booking a spoken language interpreter is often more complex than service providers realise or are trained to handle. In this article, Dr Leonie Gaiser and Dr Rebecca Tipton draw on their cross-disciplinary expertise in Linguistics and Interpreting Studies, to explore challenges in arranging language provision and discuss […]

Out of mind? What policymakers should learn from those who shielded from COVID-19

Charlotte Sharp headshot photo By and Filed Under: All posts, Health and Care, Health and Social Care Posted:

Between the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and September 2021, 4.1 million people in the UK were asked to ‘shield’, including those with autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Shielding recommendations included staying at home, avoiding all face-to-face contact with those outside shielders’ households, and limiting interactions within households. Here, Dr Charlotte Sharp and Lynn […]

Ill-health and deprivation: How we can address health inequalities in left behind neighbourhoods

By Filed Under: All posts, Devo, Growth and Inclusion, Health and Care, Health and Social Care Posted:

We have long known that the health of people living in deprived areas is worse than the national average. But this raises important questions, such as how big is the gap? Is it narrowing or growing over time? Are some deprived places worse off than others? And how do health inequalities affect economic performance? In […]

Medics analysing MRI scan - feature image for dementia article

Capacity for change: improving the governance of dementia research

James Fletcher headshot By Filed Under: All posts, Health and Care, Health and Social Care, primary care services, Research and development, Science and Technology Posted:

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) outlines legal decision-making procedures in England and Wales for people above the age of 16 who have an impairment of, or disturbance in, the functioning of the mind or brain. It specifies that research involving these people must be approved by a research ethics committee (REC) sanctioned by the […]

Practice under pressure: how can the exodus of GPs be reversed?

By and Filed Under: Health and Care, Health and Social Care Posted:

There is a workforce crisis in UK primary care. Analysis of the latest workforce data confirms a continuing drop in England’s number of general practitioners (GPs) – the equivalent of 2,133 fewer fully qualified, full-time GPs than in September 2015. One answer from policymakers has been the introduction of non-GP practitioners into surgeries, to alleviate […]

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Articles give the views of the author, and are not necessarily those of The University of Manchester.

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