Today: replacing the cuts rhetoric. This week I am going to post every day about some aspect of the Big Society policy, NHS reform and palliative care. The topics to be covered are too vast and complex to be dealt with in one post; but I will put them all together at the end on my Scribd website, where you can see past documents from this website and past publications, together with information about me.

Malcolm Payne’s Scribd website: http://www.scribd.com/m_payne5153

If you’re not used to Scribd, when the page comes up, click on ‘Shelf’ then on ‘+ See All’ for a complete listing of the papers and publications available.

I’m back posting again after a period away for medical treatment. The NHS triumphs again – I’ve been signed off back to normal life.

The St Christopher’s Social Care/Palliative Care blog was listed recently as one of the top 50 social work blogs.

See the listing at: http://mastersofsocialwork.org/top-50-blogs-by-social-work-professionals.html

This is my longest-running blog. However, since I write it for St Christopher’s and focus on end-of-life care, I publish other social work blogs elsewhere.

To update you, here they are:

This my ‘Social Work around the World’ blog. here I comment on news items about social work in different parts of the world; mainly not the UK.

I try to look for positives about social work, and my commentary tries to learn from what is going on in social work elsewhere, that could suggest how social work could be better in the UK (or wherever you are). You could comment on what you think about these bits of news.

The URL is: http://intsw.blogspot.com/

My self-positioning blog has been running for about six months. It is a personal development project, connected to some teaching about humanistic social work that I’ve been doing.

Most days, it delivers a photo, and an ‘oppi’, a series of gentle questions inspired by the photo that get you to think about yourself in relation to others in your life.

You can submit your own oppis or comments, perhaps in response to oppis. There are also quotes.

The URL is: http://self-positioning.tumblr.com/

My Amplify blog comments on (amplifies) news about UK social policy relevant to social work and social care. I use this to reprint excerpts from the news and comment (briefly) on things that don’t fit with the St Christopher’s/end-of-life care focus of this blog.

The URL is: http://malcolmpayne.amplify.com

I’ve now returned from the tender and reasonably effective NHS care; so back to blogging. My local no-star NHS hospital seems to have done an ok job, were congenial to deal with and efficient.

There will be a break in the blog for now becasue I’m off to experience the tender care of the NHS – let you know how it was when I get back.

I suppose I’d better say, if I get back

The ‘Health Herald’, a nursing blog, tells us its favourite hospice/older person blogs, putting this blog bizarrely into its pain management category – if there’s one thing I don’t rant on about it’s pain management.

I now feel a duty to comply (you didn’t know that about me did you?) So: Except to say that good pain and symptom management is an essential part of pallaitiev care, but mainly so that people can continue to lead interesting lives that allow them to complete the social tasks they need to achieve in the life that remains to them.

The listing at: http://nursesassistant.org/2010/top-50-hospice-care-blogs/

Apologies for the only occasional posts – this is partly because I’ve been away a lot, but also because we’ve had some technical difficulties, now sorted out. I am now going to post a series of items which have been waiting.

There’s been a gap while I’ve been giving lectures abroad and while the new format of this blog has been sorted out.

Now another pic of the new St C’s; it’s another view of the new Anniversary Centre (I’m now calling it Annicen) where patients and family members congregate before or after appointments or day centre, or to look for info. I have been known to say it’s really just like Starbucks, but the menu’s better.

Regular visitors will have noticed a gap; this is because we are migrating the blog to a new style that makes it easier to blog (they tell me) and has new St C’s colours etc. It will also provide for a new blog coming along soon. Sorry about the gap.

Sorry folks; again a technical problem has meant that this blog has been missing from the internet for about a month, although people on the internal St Christopher’s website will have been able to see it. Now it has been reinstated, I’m afraid some of the comments you made have been lost. But we’re back in normal mode now.