How we Treat the Sick:
Neglect and Abuse in Our Health Services

By Michael Mandelstam

Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

No official statistics are kept for the number of hospital patients, in particular older people, who are subjected to neglect and abuse. That is, left malnourished and dehydrated, in pain, at risk of infection, ignored, not spoken to, and discharged from hospital prematurely…  How we Treat the Sick bears witness to all these practices and more. Setting out a wealth of evidence, Michael Mandelstam shows beyond question that neglectful care is a systemic blight, rather than a mere local blemish, within the UK health services.

The challenge

Despite the great interest of the book’s central theme – the ongoing neglect and abuse in the health services – How we Treat the Sick included a lot of detailed information about the NHS, meaning that it wasn’t necessarily an easy read. Moreover, the writer’s name wasn’t known by the general public.

The solution

Read the book from cover-to-cover, and work closely with the author to create several pitches appealing to the media. Make the most of the themes close to readers’ hearts, e.g. neglect in our hospitals, and the main reasons for this sorry state of affairs.

The result

A two-page excerpt of the book was published in the health pages of the Daily Mail (controlled circ. 1,589,000), moreover, a comment piece by the author appeared in the ‘Society’ section of the Guardian newspaper, controlled circ. 164K+.  Several professional health magazines featured the book such as Nursing Standard (Royal College of Nursing, circ. 41,975). In addition, Michael Mandelstam was interviewed by You & Yours (the flagship consumer programme on BBC Radio 4).