Monthly Archives: September 2014

What is the patient experience?

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As evidenced in documents and reviews such as High Quality Care for All, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, and the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement’s Patient Experience Book, references to ‘the patient experience’ have become increasingly pervasive in healthcare policy in the UK. While a concern with how people experience health and illness   …Continue Reading


The Use of Expertise in the Scottish Referendum Debate: Build Them Up to Knock Them Down?

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In a wonderfully perceptive article from 1999, German sociologist Peter Weingart identifies two paradoxes surrounding the use of science in political debate (and we can apply this to expertise more generally). First, late modern societies show an unprecedented dependence on expert knowledge to assess the risks and consequences of political action. Politics becomes ‘scientised’. But   …Continue Reading