Martin Blanchard
I retired from NHS psychiatry bruised and battered in 2013 after extensive degradation of the community service I had worked in since 1994. I was left wondering why this had happened, it had been seen as an excellent service by users and other professionals.
After attending the better bits of the annual ‘Marxism’ at UCL and Intitute of Education, and working my way through David Harvey’s online course and many of his books, I was lucky to meet a friend’s brother, Michael Burawoy who kindly listened to my story and suggested even more reading. Then we all heard that ‘value-based’ health systems would be developed across the country…….and the paper ‘fell into place’….I could not get it published and not much interest elsewhere, and I must have put it somewhere up on the internet as yesterday I was told a postdoctoral researcher at Kings College London had read it for his global study of this phenomenon- and suddenly it may have a home….
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