Gavin Francis

A detective inspector​ once told me that the key thing to remember at a crime scene was to keep your hands in your pockets; the temptation to reach out and touch a murder victim, or a potential murder weapon, could be overwhelming. He had little faith in forensic pathologists. ‘I was at a scene where a dead man lay slumped over a desk,’ he told me. ‘There was a...

In November​ 1981 at a function in London, Neville Butler, a professor of paediatric medicine at Bristol University, contrived to drop a cup of coffee at Margaret Thatcher’s feet. He stooped down to mop it up, then sprang up and asked her for money. ‘I’m Professor Butler,’ he’s reported to have said. ‘We’re doing a national study looking at...

On​ my morning commute through Edinburgh I pass a herbalist’s shop opposite the old medical school building. It was established in 1860. The windows are dressed at present with hand-made green paper leaves and a cardboard parrot; there are allergy salves for hay fever, iron tonics for fatigue and slippery elm for heartburn. At the back of one of the windows is a more permanent...

For​ the last ten years GPs have been paid, by the taxpayer, to deliver ‘general medical services’ through a scheme based partly on incentives. ‘Quality of care’ is assessed using an ‘outcome framework’ known as QOF, whose parameters relate to expected best practice when treating various long-term diseases. Someone with diabetes, for example, should have...