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24 results
  • Article
  • Article

How hospital care fails disabled bodies

| Jamie HaleCamilla Greenwell

Hospitals aim to make sick people well. But if the sick person is also disabled, the unbending nature of monolithic hospital systems can easily worsen the situation. Here Jamie Hale writes from painful personal experience.

  • Article
  • Article

The relationship between science and art

| Victoria Kingston

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

| Guy StaggJess Nash

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

  • Article
  • Article

Homes for the hives of industry

| Emily Sargent

By building workers’ villages, industry titans demonstrated both philanthropy and control. Employees’ health improved, while rulebooks told them how to live ideal lives.

  • Article
  • Article

Printing the body

| Julia Nurse

The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.

  • Article
  • Article

Designing better mental health wards

| Emily Reynolds

Bringing colour and natural light to tired, grubby mental health wards has a measurably positive effect on patients. A few groundbreaking projects are showing the way.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of Living with Buildings curator, Emily Sargent

| Gwendolyn Smith

Curator Emily Sargent reveals why council estates and a Finnish TB sanatorium were chosen for the ‘Living with Buildings’ exhibition.

  • Article
  • Article

Vaccinating a community, saving lives

| Hannah DinesRobin Hammond

Doctor Jane Harvey always goes the extra mile to care for her patients, and in recent months that’s extended to huge efforts to save lives with her coronavirus vaccination push.

  • Article
  • Article

The birth of Britain's National Health Service

| Cal Flyn

Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.

  • Article
  • Article

NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare

| Cal Flyn

The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.

  • Article
  • Article

How to thrive in lockdown

| Gareth BerlinerCarrie Ravenscroft

Gareth Berliner shares how being a Disabled person has given him the resilience and motivation to find a new creative challenge during lockdown.

  • Article
  • Article

Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test

| Aparna NairTracy Satchwill

The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.

  • Article
  • Article

Fees, funding and the NHS

| Cal Flyn

In the 1950s, dramatic political battles over NHS charges brought down a government. But public confidence in the service still grew.

  • Article
  • Article

Words of hope and anger

| Penny Pepper

Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.

  • Article
  • Article

Care, creativity and a connected world

| Christine Ro

Find out about the challenges Wellcome Collection has faced during the last very demanding year.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs

| Claire HornSteven Pocock

In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.

  • Article
  • Article

Writing in remission

| Brian DillonNaki Narh

Reading the writings of the lifelong hypochondriac Jacques Derrida during lockdown, Brian Dillon realises his own health anxiety has become unusually subdued.

  • Article
  • Article

Ken’s ten: looking back at ten years of Wellcome Collection

| Ken Arnold

Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Trans masculinity on the record

| E-J ScottThomas S G Farnetti

Curator of the Museum of Transology in Brighton E-J Scott tells the story behind a few of the 250 objects from the collection, and the powerful effect they had on him as he put trans lives on the record.

  • Article
  • Article

Providing care across languages

| Niyoshi ShahRanganath Krishnamani

When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.

  • Article
  • Article

“People see the disability but forget the ability”

| Sarifa PatelBenjamin Gilbert

I’m a disabled Asian woman, and mother of four. I’m trying to show people that we have to talk about disability if we want things to change.

  • Article
  • Article

Society, not Covid-19, makes us vulnerable

| Rick BurgessCarrie Ravenscroft

Rick Burgess coped with the death of his mother in February 2020 by immersing himself in the task of protecting his community from Covid-19 and challenging the government's failure to protect and support elderly and Disabled people during the pandemic.

  • Article
  • Article

Coasting to catastrophe

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.

  • Article
  • Article

Having children as a fat woman

| Ellie LevensonBenjamin Gilbert

When she sought fertility advice, and at antenatal appointments, Ellie Levenson found that medics were openly anti-fat. Only years later can she evaluate the true repercussions of their words and actions.