Medicine and Science from The BMJ

We’re 18 months into the Labour government, and their changes to the NHS are beginning to be felt. In the 10 year plan that they launched last year, they announced three planned shifts for the health service. 

Firstly, they pledge to move care from hospitals to the community, an increased focus on prevention rather than sickness, and shift from analogue to digital with an improved NHS app where patients can access records, seek adv...

This interview is available in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNO47EfuEM

​‪ @RichardJMurphy‬, political economist and tax campaigner, joins Kamran Abbasi, Editor in Chief of The BMJ.

In the UK an ongoing dispute between resident doctors and the Labour Government saw doctors go on strike in mid-December. With Winter pressure piling on and cost-of-living on the rise, do doctors have a credible case of pay rises? And mo...

The class of GLP-1 agonist drugs including Ozempic gained a wide reputation for weight loss in 2025. However, it's well established that weight regain is a common result after people stop their doses. We report on new research which aims to quantify what is happening in the here-and-now for patients who stop using these and similar drugs.

Weight regain after cessation of medication for weight management: systematic review and meta-...

This episode is available in video form on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1cGrD47eZSk  American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson joins Kamran Abbasi to discuss climate disaster, the need for political imagination, and science fiction's vision for health.

Kim Stanley Robinson is the acclaimed author of a trilogy of novels, exploring the terraforming and settlement of Mars. His most recent novel, 'Ministry for the Future', was...

It’s time for 2025’s festive fun!

Practicing medicine can be a very visceral experience - and the English language can’t always adequately capture the sights, sounds, smells. So Matt Morgan, intensivist and BMJ columnist, is creating medical neologisms, and joins us to share a few.

Madhvi Joshi, a GP in London, has written about longevity science, and we hear how the “biohacking” of internet influencers like Bryan Johnson is making...

In this episode, we hear how Generative AI is making it into the consultation room - but not through NHS endorsed routes - surveys suggest that ⅔ of doctors are using AI, for backoffice tasks - but also increasingly for information and diagnosis.

David Navarro, a research fellow in generative AI at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Charlotte Blease, associate professor at the Participatory e...

There is an enormous amount of research on treatment for ADHD - pharmaceutical and otherwise. But not all of those trials, or meta-analyses, are of high quality; and not many compare the whole literature. 

Now a new umbrella review - a review of reviews - tries to give a broad overview of the whole evidence base. Corentin Gosling, associate professor at the Université Paris Nanterre, joins us to set out th...

"Damning” and “unforgivable failures” is how some papers headlines reacted to criticism of former UK prime minister Boris Johnson in the second of 10 reports from the UK Covid Inquiry.

Under pressure, in 2001 Boris Johnson announced a covid inquiry led by a former judge, Baroness Hallett. Each report is examining a different area of the pandemic's impact, and module 2 is about decision ma...

It’s the BMJ’s annual climate issue - and in this episode, we’ll be hearing about more ways in which climate mitigation is good for health.

Firstly, climate change is fuelling conflict, and exacerbating the impact it has on fragile healthcare systems. Andy Haines, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Barbora Sedova, from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, discuss how climate and conflict inters...

Far right rallies have been held across the UK, culminating in a large parade in London where Elon Musk spoke. At the same time, politicians from across the political spectrum are following the talking points of far right parties - and shifting their policies rightward, even the Labour home secretary has said she wishes to double the period migrants have to be in the UK before they can become citizens.

That has made a group of med...

This week on the podcast

The BMJ investigates Q-COLLAR, an American device that distributors claim can reduce brain injury from contact sports. Investigators James Smoliga and Mu Yang take us through the evidence, and former NFL punter turned US bobsled team member Johnny Townsend explains what this means for sportspeople.

Bin Wang from Zhejiang University School of Medicine explains what the new network metaanalysis finds is the b...

In this episode of the podcast;

In July this year, the Government published their 10 year health plan for England - A new analysis just published on BMJ.com takes an in depth look at the chances of that plan succeeding, and where the government needs to focus time and resources. Bob Klaber, paediatrician and director of strategy, research and innovation at Imperial College Healthcare, and Helen Salisbury, GP and columnist for the B...

In today’s episode: Assisted Dying moves closer to becoming UK law. The proposed legislation to allow people to end their own lives has moved through a second debate in the House of Lords. What do MPs and doctors think of the Bill as it stands? And, new ways to pull research findings from observation alone makes us question whether correlation really doesn’t equal causation. We find out - what is Target Trial Emulation?

The BMJ’s E...

In today’s episode:

• Rethinking how we measure the harm caused by the  arms industry
• The life long, and multigenerational, impact of starvation in Gaza
• What is the appropriate focus on prevention in general practice?

The BMJ's international editor, Jocalyn Clark talks about a new series we've just published - examining the arms industry as a commercial determinant of health. Jocalyn also speaks to Mark Bellis, from Liv...

CRISPR technology has revolutionised biological research, and for the first time it’s out of the lab and into the NHS, as NICE has approved its use as cost effective. Kenneth Charles, senior lecturer in haematology at the University of the West Indies explains how the treatment works, and what concerns he has about it's implementation.

Also this week, a new investigation on bmj.com has looked at a number of British companies who ar...

If you’ve been in a high street pharmacy or supermarket recently, chances are you’ll have seen home test kits for all sorts of indications; blood sugar level, vitamin deficiencies, thyroid function, and even some forms of cancer.

A new series of article in The BMJ revealing serious concerns with the reliability of these home tests, and raises questions about their regulation.

Jonathan Deeks, professor of Biostatistics at the Unive...

Professor Gillian Leng, President of the Royal Society of Medicine was asked to carry out an independent review into the role of physician and anaesthetic associates.

She sits down with Kamran Abbasi, editor in chief of The BMJ, to discuss her findings. In the UK, the rollout of physician associates, NHS staff who took on some of the tasks of doctors, has been both haphazard and controversial.

Originally copied from similar roles i...

This week we’re focusing on the NHS.

On the 3rd of July the UK’s Prime Minister, Kier Starmer finally announced the NHS’ 10 year plan. His Labour government laid out a vision for where the healthcare service should head over the next decade.

The announcement has been met with mixed responses. The plan has some good ideas - but a lack of vision combined with scarcity of detail leave many questions about how well its aims can be impl...