The Guardian view on high-end science in the National Health Service

The genome project and improving ambulance response times both matterThe NHS has an extraordinary record of medical innovation. The link between smoking and lung cancer, the first baby born through IVF and the first heart, lung and liver transplant were all achievements of the health service. Now the 11 hospital trusts which will pioneer the 100,000 genome project have been named. They will recruit participants in an ambitious attempt to sequence the genetic make-up of up to 100,000 NHS patients, creating a database to allow researchers to identify the links between genetic variations and cancers and other rare diseases. At last the high hopes of gene sequencing may be translated into practical medicine. There is talk of genetics as a diagnostic tool, the development of personalised medicine and new, precision-targeted drugs that would amount to a revolution in healthcare. As the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, argued in a speech last month, the NHS is remarkably good at advanced medical science.This tradition of medical creativity sits awkwardly with the other image of the NHS, as a sclerotic organisation that is as bad at delivering new ways of managing process as it is good at bringing in new ways of treating people. This may not be fair. Restraining the cost of healthcare is a global preoccupation, and the NHS delivers better outcomes for less money than any other comparable system. All the same, the unique politics of the NHS can lead to damaging contortions, as the weeke...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: NHS Health Society Medical research Science Source Type: news