David Zigmond

David Zigmond was a London GP for forty years. He is also trained in psychiatry and psychotherapy. Many of his writings on themes of humanism (and its lack) in healthcare can be found on his website.

Goodbye, GPs - how the big became the enemy of the good

Serial NHS reforms are destroying continuity of patient care – the very thing that used to make GPs feel their jobs were worthwhile. No wonder so many are leaving.

By David Zigmond

/ 31 May 2019

Goodbye, GPs - how the big became the enemy of the good

The NHS Ten Year Plan neglects the human side of healthcare

Markets, machines and micromanagement are turning healthcare into officious, insensitive practice that demoralises staff and patients.

By David Zigmond

/ 1 Feb 2019

How and Why Do We Retire? Ill omens for younger doctors

The nature of our departures from our work often tells us much about what kind of problems are being left behind. The individual may escape, but what about the wider community?

By David Zigmond

/ 5 Sep 2016

Doctors have always been over-worked, but that's not what's causing the recruitment crisis

The greatest reward of being a doctor - relating to patients as fellow complicated human beings - has been lost amidst the growth of tick-box, corporatised management that treats all doctors as if they were 'duffers'.

By David Zigmond

/ 26 Jun 2015

Lives are being lost due to the heart-failure of marketised healthcare

MPs criticise the NHS for mental health failings this week - but the real problem is a competition-based focus on treatment rather than on care.

By David Zigmond

/ 5 Mar 2015

NHS England 2014: Vichy France 1941

Doctors are being turned into Commissars, Apparatchiks and Healthdroids, mutely collaborating with endless health ‘reforms’. History reminds us why we must resist such totalitarianism.

By David Zigmond

/ 2 Sep 2014

Depression needs more than mass-produced talking treatment

Has there really been a breakthrough in talking treatments for depression as claimed, or are formulaic policies driving out more humane interactions with the mentally unwell?

By David Zigmond

/ 24 Jul 2014

Renationalisation of the rail services? Why not start with the NHS?

Labour is flirting with the idea of renationalising the railways - but it should start by renationalising the NHS.

By David Zigmond

/ 19 May 2014

Autoasphyxiation - Who’ll stop the market suffocating the NHS?

The toxic burden of the market is dooming the NHS to disintegration and depersonalisation - yet GPs coralled into Clinical Commissioning Groups aren’t even allowed to question it.

By David Zigmond

/ 18 Feb 2014

Does the NHS need a 'new broom' from the private sector?

New NHS boss Simon Stevens will inherit an NHS in crisis. Will his outsider status and private sector experience be just the new broom the NHS needs - or is that part of the problem?

By David Zigmond

/ 13 Nov 2013

NHS decisions, Eurovision-style

Transparency, Accountability and Democracy can seem like a protective triumvirate for public decision making, but these can easily turn shallow, demotic and false.

By David Zigmond

/ 18 Sep 2013