NHS improvements are being bought at huge and unnecessary cost. A report from Reform warns that by 2010, the NHS will cost up to £20 billion more than it should for its level of performance. The report contrasts two approaches to health policy: reform, meaning incentives aimed at increasing value from existing spending, and funding, which simply increases resources.Since the publication of its original NHS Plan in 2000, the Government has often presented funding and reform as being simultaneous and complementary. In reality, however, funding has come before reform.
The woman charged with the job of improving the quality of information provided to drivers to help them beat traffic congestion will join the Highways Agency this month. Denise Plumpton who is to become the Agency’s first Director of Information, has extensive experience in developing information technology strategies in the public and private sectors.The appointment is part of the Highways Agency’s changing and broadening remit, which means that as well as building and maintaining trunk roads, it also manages traffic to keep drivers moving on the network. The new role has been developed to make maximum use of the existing strategic network as well as delivering direct services such as incident management and better route information.
Read more on HIGHWAYS AGENCY APPOINTS IT EXPERT AS FIRST DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION…
Gateshead Health NHS Trust will today become the latest to gain Foundation status following approval from Monitor, the independent regulator. It joins four other trusts whose authorisations took effect on January 1st. Another wave of authorisations is expected in April.The Gateshead trust joins the Barnsley District General Hospitals, Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Royal Hospitals, Harrogate Healthcare and South Tyneside Healthcare trusts in gaining new status this month, bringing the total of foundation trusts to 25.
A future for academic medicine in which medical schools are answerable or where patients decide on doctors’ training or even in which academics compete for research grants on television game shows is outlined today by members of the International Campaign to Revitalise Academic Medicine.
Their vision of what the field could look like in 2025 is published simultaneously today by the BMJ, the open access international medical journal PLoS Medicine and the Milbank Memorial Fund. The campaign was
launched in November 2003 by the BMJ and partners.Members have come up with various scenarios. In the first academic medicine has flourished in the private sector and medical research, training and
service have become commercial business activities. Although overall efficiency and effectiveness have improved, equity and innovation have suffered.
Read more on NO PRE-CONCEPTIONS IN VISIONS OF FUTURE FOR ACADEMIC MEDICINE…