All Commissioning articles – Page 248
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News
Top-ups: experts divided over health's thorniest issue
Should patients be allowed to top up their care by paying privately for drugs? The question has confounded experts and now the government has an unenviable task in making a final decision. Helen Crump reports
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News
Top-up payment review highlights NHS bodies' worries
Responses to the review of co-payments have revealed the extent of uncertainty about the way forward for the NHS on top-ups.
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News
Drug addiction services hit by unrealistic targets
Unrealistic targets to get more drug addicts into treatment are causing the quality of services to plummet, psychiatrists are warning.
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News
Lansley boosts councils' role in public health
Public health directors would have to report to local authorities under plans announced by the shadow health secretary last week.Andrew Lansley told an audience at the think tank Reform that the Conservatives now envisaged councils having an even greater role in improving public health.Outlining conclusions from the party's consultation on ...
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Comment
Paul Jennings on the commissioner-provider split
It is just over two years since we began separating the commissioning and provider arms in Walsall teaching primary care trust.
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HSJ Knowledge
Super patients should use their powers wisely
The government is set to empower patients with personal budgets for care, but clear rules must guarantee choices are well informed and cost-effective, say Anna Dixon and Rebecca Ashton
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HSJ Knowledge
Measure the mix of interventions
All primary care trusts must become world class by commissioning services that 'add life to years and years to life' and specifying the outcomes to be delivered.
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News
Probe calls for tariff for fertility services
A Department of Health group probing inequalities in IVF provision is demanding a national tariff for fertility services.
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News
Surrey is first to agree its integrated care proposals
The first primary care trust to unveil its plans for an integrated care pilot has warned that commissioners will have to overcome existing 'anomalies' to make the initiative work.
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Comment
David Lee on integrating care
Two recent phone calls from different parts of the country got me thinking about what good management can do to make mental health and social care systems tick.
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News
East of England bolsters IVF provision
Primary care trusts in the East of England have agreed a new fertility policy that will raise and standardise the number of IVF treatment cycles offered.
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News
PCTs fight for local decision making on controversial drugs
Primary care trusts must retain their right to decide whether patients receive controversial drugs in exceptional circumstances, PCT leaders have warned.
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Comment
NICE chairman hits back at critics
Some recent criticisms of NICE's work ignore the realities of modern healthcare and misrepresent the facts. Institute chairman Sir Michael Rawlins sets the record straight
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News
IT may change funding plans
A new IT system could pave the way for a substantial change in the way primary care trusts and GPs are funded, HSJ has been told.
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News
Guilty by emission as carbon cuts loom large
The NHS emits a million tonnes of carbon a year, but it must cut this figure drastically. Helen Crump asks whether trusts are giving this issue the priority it requires and highlights some innovative ideas.
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News
Sophia Christie on the Naomi Campbell effect
At a recent House of Commons gathering to discuss the role of commissioning in delivering improvement, there was silence on the application of world class standards to the commissioning of primary care.
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News
PCTs suspect trusts may be allowing top ups
Primary care trusts have received few requests from patients wishing to 'top up' their care but are concerned that hospitals are doing so without their permission.
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News
Patients with rarer cancers face 'postcode lottery'
Patients with rarer cancers face a postcode lottery over whether their 'exceptional requests' for NHS treatment are granted, the charity Rarer Cancers Forum has claimed.The charity is calling for national guidance on how primary care trusts should make such decisions.
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HSJ Partners
Housing support 'is cost effective'
Hot on the heels of the Darzi review, the Integrated Care Network has published a study that suggests health and social care investment in housing support is cost-effective and can transform lives.
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HSJ Knowledge
Delivering Darzi's vision for primary prevention
Knowsley PCT's public health practitioner model shows how GPs can become champions of prevention in primary care and deliver on Lord Darzi's public health promise. Matt Kearney explains