The Five Years Forward View, NHS England’s blueprint for further investment, shows the crisis facing the NHS. There has been a fall in real-terms expenditure because – regardless of what the current government…
Productivity and wages clash in NHS.
Bandage by Shutterstock
Running a healthcare system is expensive. At present we spend about 8% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the NHS. The UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility, predicts that by 2061 we could be spending…
Pulling the plug on services will be costly.
AMA via Shutterstock
Public sector workers have been taking to the streets protesting the below-inflation pay rises and austerity. The Trades Union Congress hoped this would send a clear message to the British government…
New Zealand’s got more for export than lamb and All Blacks.
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he wants to develop “integrated care organisations” in the English NHS, with NHS hospital trusts taking a lead role in forming them. This has been challenged, quite…
There has been much ado about the new EU/US trade agreement’s potential effect on the NHS.
EPA
This week has witnessed the seventh round of talks between EU and US negotiators seeking to hammer out a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These have been mired in controversy over…
Jennifer Dixon, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Anyone who has had the “pleasure” of attending party conferences will know they are largely political theatre. While serious discussion does happen, spiky debates mostly take place in the lively fringe…
But they might also cost £12 billion and arrive, non-functional, 10 years late.
US FDA
Without the fuss and delays that have plagued so many large government IT projects, a key part of the NHS digital infrastructure was recently migrated and updated in a single weekend. The collection of…
Battle to protect science research funding continues.
YanLev
Alex Salmond’s political de mortuis didn’t last long. His local paper, the Aberdeen Press and Journal, put a big focus on his high standing in Strichen in Aberdeenshire, where he lives. The locals said…
Imagine you are feeling unwell, in pain, lonely and worried about your future health, and you just don’t feel like eating. It is unlikely that you want to eat a large, hot meal that arrives in front of…
So no rabbit then. But plenty of friends. Probably too many, if truth be told; and maybe too many promises, too. The six-part plan unveiled by Ed Miliband in his Labour conference speech is at least one…
Will never be Michelin star but could be better.
Jayneandd
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that minimum standards for NHS hospital food will be introduced in England is about time. Whereas the NHS in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have had food standards for…
Scottish voters are still in the dark about key health and research issues.
Andrew Milligan/PA Wire
With September 18 drawing nearer, the people of Scotland still lack answers about how independence will affect a number of institutions, policies and their everyday lives. It is crucial to uncover what…
As a non-profit organisation, the NHS should follow the same principles behind open-source: sharing knowledge and standardising procedures to help all the patients. And in the same way that the software…
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it - but sometimes it’s just time to move on.
Otherthings
Like many large modern organisations, the NHS has grown up with constant change – not only in medical practice, but also in the systems that support the daily routine of one of the world’s largest health…
Recent reports have indicated that the Home Office has enjoyed access to the NHS records of more than 6,900 people since 2010, and used information from them for ramped-up efforts to track down illegal…
A cottage in Glencoe once owned by Jimmy Savile.
Danny Lawson/PA
The latest report on Jimmy Savile’s crimes in 28 NHS hospitals over the course of several decades have added more unspeakable allegations to the BBC DJ’s already unparalleled list of abuses. Among them…
To Accident and Emergency, post haste!
William Woolnoth engraving/Rotational
Today, we cherish local hospitals and the services they offer, even though we might criticise their shortcomings. Despite arguments for consolidating some specialist services to promote better care, for…
As the UK government wrangles with the sticky problem of how to make health records useful for research without compromising privacy, it might look to how Google has evolved for inspiration. Google was…
Do free prescriptions lead to waste?
David Smart/Shutterstock
The call to abolish the prescription charge in England by the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is the centre of great debate. Unsurprisingly so. The cost of making and buying pharmaceutical drugs is an emotive…
Free at the point of delivery: the NHS founding principle.
Dave Thompson/PA Wire
Brace yourself for another round of innuendo and ignorance about immigration as the Office for National Statistics prepares to release its latest figures showing that 30,000 new migrants have arrived from…
Deputy Director, Intellectual Forum at Jesus College in the University of Cambridge, and Researcher for the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University, University of Cambridge