All Policy articles – Page 247
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News
DH response to Monitor under wraps
The Department of Health has refused to release correspondence to Monitor regarding its legal dispute over the cap on income from private patients.
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HSJ Knowledge
Can fluoridation help the poorest?
The health secretary's promise of £14m a year over the next three years for water fluoridation schemes has reignited the debate. Strategic health authorities and primary care trusts must persuade local communities to agree to it, but opponents protest that fluoridation is mass medication to benefit the few and point ...
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News
Census shows wide variation in numbers of clinical staff
The government's boast that the NHS has been swelled by thousands of extra clinical staff masks wide regional variations and a flattening in the number of nurses and GPs.
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News
Care Quality Commission salary is 'ridiculously low'
The Department of Health is under pressure to increase the salary for the first chair of the new health and social care regulator after it was branded 'ridiculously low'. The job was advertised at £60,780 a year for up to three days a week, considerably less than comparable posts.
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News
Prison drugs care 'below 'standard'
A think tank has criticised prison drug services for falling short of 'even minimum standards' and called on the government to take action.
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News
Lift-off for air ambulances as government comes calling
The NHS is suddenly showing a lot of interest in buying into air ambulances. So are these charity services ready to do business? Alison Moore reports
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News
NHS service providers can advertise under new code
NHS trusts and independent providers of NHS services have the freedom from today to advertise direct to patients - but must abide by a new code of conduct.
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Comment
Ian Watson and Adrian Newland on the role of healthcare scientists
Junior health minister Lord Darzi's interim report promotes a radical patient-centred view most would endorse. The concept of local treatment centres where most examinations can be carried out is an attractive one. But such services must not be offered in isolation, remote from high-quality diagnostic services.
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HSJ Knowledge
PCTs pledge to tackle race inequality
More than 20 primary care trusts have pledged to tackle inequality in healthcare
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News
Doctors to get extra training in alcohol-related health problems
To help tackle the health effects of alcohol misuse 60,000 new doctors are to be trained to identify and treat people who are drinking too much, public health minister Dawn Primarolo has announced.
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News
Scottish government steps up fight against hospital infections
Prudent prescribing of antibiotics and a surveillance programme to monitor and provide data on organisms that are resistant to antibiotics is part of a hospital infections action plan released by the Scottish government.
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News
Prison drug services falling short
Prison drugs services often fall short of even minimum standards, a report by the UK Drug Policy Commission has said. The report says community treatments are likely to more appropriate than imprisonment in many cases but not enough is known about which interventions for drug dependent offenders actually work. ...
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News
Services must focus on recovery says report
Mental health services need to focus more on recovery and less on medication and symptom control, according to a policy paper published by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. The paper says that radical change is needed to give service users more opportunities to get their lives back.
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HSJ Knowledge
Médecins Sans Frontières?
There are conflicting approaches to providing NHS care to those not entitled to it, and the charity Médecins du Monde is at the front line of the battle. Mark Gould reports
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News
New coalition sets out vision for a healthy London
The London Health Forum today highlighted the need for effective partnerships between the NHS and other sectors as it published a report on London's health services.
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Comment
Political opening hours
As a medical student, I sat in on GP clinics and recall whole mornings with patients seeing their charming GP, chatting, then leaving the room reassured but without a new diagnosis or treatment, writes Jake Low-Beer
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Comment
Guarantees are vital to ISTC success
Your piece on independent sector treatment centres, 'ISTC contract guarantees will saddle NHS with £187m bill', misses some fundamental points, writes David Worskett
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Comment
GP hours - what a mess
Well, well, well. What a shock the National Audit Office has stated that GPs earn lots more money for working fewer hours. This is something that has been widely known for some time, writes Les Collister
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News
GPs urge PCTs to remain flexible
Primary care trusts will have to negotiate with family doctors over how to implement extended hours locally after the overwhelming majority of GPs voted to accept the government’s proposed deal.
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News
Lib Dems plan PCT tax-raising power
The Liberal Democrats would turn primary care trusts into elected bodies that would eventually enjoy tax-raising powers, the party decided at its spring conference in Liverpool.