Save Our Surgeries

Today patients and doctors from three East London boroughs picketed outside a meeting of NHS England and took a petition to the Department of Health in an effort to save their GP surgeries from cuts and reorganisation of GP surgeries in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney.

They are campaigning against the removal of the Minimum Practice Income Guarantee (MPIG) which the Department of Health has decided will be phased out over the next 7 years. The Jubilee Street Practice in Tower Hamlets estimates that this will be a loss of income in the region of £1 million over the next 7 years. A devastating blow for any practice.

Facebook, emotions and big data.

Over the last few days all the major media outlets have run stories about how Facebook can change your emotional state. The basis for this story is a piece of research conducted in 2012. Most of the media outlets have focused on the supposed potential for emotional control the study claims facebook might have. But there is another issue. Why is Facebook doing scientific research in the first place and how did it get ethical approval for the research without our consent?