Category Archives: Main Page

NHS, and Microsoft collaborate on patient-centred design

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“In this edition (click link for video) of House Calls for Healthcare Professionals, Dr. Bill Crounse and his guests discuss this collaborative initiative between the NHS, Microsoft, and the developer community to improve patient safety and end-user satisfaction with a more intuitive, standardized, and universal user interface to clinical applications.”

Other health-related news:

  • EPSRC call for Exploration Studies for Grand Challenges within the Information-Driven Health Initiative.
  • Wanless report from the King’s Fund (PDF, 5MB) which has a sharp focus on public health. I recall moaning about the demise of the public health research body the Health Development Agency at a meeting at the ICA in late 2004 only for blank stares from the expert panel. Cheers! Though of course now its part of NICE it should be easier to provide objective measures of success, as Wanless talks about in his report.

Anita Roddick

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Just found out Anita Roddick is dead:

Founder of the Body Shop Dame Anita Roddick has died at the age of 64.

Her family said in a statement that she suffered “a major brain haemorrhage” at 1830 BST at St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, West Sussex.

OK, so I was lucky enough to have met Anita just a couple of times, (once introducing her to Clare Hodges from the Alliance for Cannabis Theraputics) and even was a guest and stayed over one night which was great fun.



I recall meeting there a guy who said his dad had been the actor in the famous Secret Lemonade Drinker TV advert for R Whites Lemonade (who had a factory in Barking, where I now live). So in celebration of Anita, here’s that advert:


“The adverts featured the actor Royce Mills, dubbed with the voice of Ross MacManus (father of Elvis Costello). MacManus wrote the song, with his son providing the backing vocals.”