National Health Service (NHS) Blogs This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Reform The ‘Cadillac Tax’ To Target Rich Benefits, Not High Costs
President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal responds to intense political pressure by proposing some changes to the calculation of the Affordable Care Act’s “Cadillac Tax.” This is a 40 percent excise tax on the cost of insurance coverage (including employer contributions to health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts) over a threshold, subject to a range of adjustments. This would effectively cap the long-standing employer-sponsored health insurance tax exclusion, which encourages employers to fund health care coverage. Its implementation was postponed from 2018 to 2020 as part of ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 16, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Joseph White Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Cadillac tax employer-sponsored coverage Employer-Sponsored Insurance Source Type: blogs

English Developments In Value-Based Care: The Beginnings Of A Revolution?
Watching from England, one of the most remarkable and well-documented developments in US health care of recent years has been the rapid adoption of a value-based approach to health care and the creation of hundreds of accountable care organizations (ACOs). By contrast, developments with value-based and ACO-like care in the English National Health Service (NHS) are less prevalent and much less well documented. Nevertheless, significant lessons are beginning to emerge from the NHS, some of which may have relevance internationally. For many years in England, hospitals have been rewarded for the volume of work they do using a ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 16, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Nicholas Hicks and Diane Bell Tags: Costs and Spending Global Health Hospitals Innovations in Care Delivery Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Population Health Quality ACOs England Europe National Health Service patient uses of evidence patient-centered care Source Type: blogs

Why we need the death panel
The UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which is abbreviated NICE because a) that sounds, well, nice and b) the word health was added to the name later, is an essential institution. I do not expect to see an equivalent in the U.S. in my lifetime. (I'm not sure if you can get behind the paywall for the link.)This is a subject I used to write about a lot here and then I figured okay, I've been there and done that. But it was a few years ago and the political context has changed, so I'll revisit. NICE is not actually much like Sarah Palin's imaginary death panels. It doesn't rule on individual cases. ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 14, 2016 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

New Health Care Symposium: Consolidation And Competition In US Health Care
Editor’s note: This post is part of a Health Affairs Blog symposium stemming from “The New Health Care Industry: Integration, Consolidation, Competition in the Wake of the Affordable Care Act,” a conference held recently at Yale Law School’s Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy. Links to all posts in the symposium will be added to Abbe Gluck’s introductory post as they appear, and you can access a full list of symposium pieces here or by clicking on the “Yale Health Care Industry Symposium” tag at the bottom of any symposium post. Virtually all health care in the United States is delivered th...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 1, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Martin Gaynor Tags: Costs and Spending Hospitals Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Population Health Quality consolidation insurer consolidation market consolidation Yale Health Care Industry Symposium Source Type: blogs

White House Budget includes Prescription Drug Cost Provisions and Publish NPI Numbers on Open Payments
Recently, the White House released its 2017 Budget through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In the Budget, the Administration lays out some of its concerns about our current healthcare system, including drug costs as they relate to Medicare, Medicaid, and transparency. Addressing the High Cost of Drugs The cost of drugs continues to take center stage, with constant Congressional hearings and Congressional inquiries and probes. The saga now moves to the Executive Branch of the government, with this budget including a package of proposals that focus on Medicare, Medicaid, and drug price transparency. Improvin...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 22, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

Reexamining Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research And Treatment Policy
In recent months, two developments have provided some degree of optimism to people with the illness variously called chronic fatigue syndrome, myalgic encephalomyelitis (“inflammation of the brain and central nervous system, with muscle pain”), CFS/ME, and ME/CFS — the term often used these days by U.S. agencies. Taken together, these developments herald the welcome possibility of significant changes in research and treatment policies for the illness, which is estimated to afflict between 1 and 2.5 million people in the U.S. They also reinforce a critical but often overlooked point: patients can possess far more ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 4, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: David Tuller Tags: Drugs and Medical Technology Equity and Disparities Featured Hospitals Public Health Quality chronic fatigue syndrome NIH PACE trial Research Source Type: blogs

The National Health Service (conditions relating to payments in connection with property by NHS bodies to local authorities and other bodies) directions 2016
Department of Health (DH) - These updated directions set conditions relating to payments in connection with property made by NHS bodies to local authorities and other bodies under sections 256 and 257 of the NHS Act 2006. Directions DH publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - January 11, 2016 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity Source Type: blogs

The draft National Health Service Pension Scheme, Injury Benefits and Additional Voluntary Contributions (Amendment) Regulations 2016: consultation document & explanatory notes
Department of Health -The Department of Health is consulting on a draft statutory instrument, ‘The National Health Service Pension Scheme, Injury Benefits and Additional Voluntary Contributions (Amendment) Regulations 2016’. This proposes amendments to the regulations that provide the rules for the NHS Pension Schemes in England and Wales, the supplementary Additional Voluntary Contribution arrangements and the Injury Benefits scheme. The closing date for comments is 12 February 2015. Consultation Department of Health - consultations (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - December 18, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Consultations Workforce and employment Source Type: blogs

The chasm between British doctors and Jeremy Hunt
Britain’s health secretary wants to uncharm his way to a revolution. To galvanize support for a seven-day National Health Service (NHS), which the NHS was before Jeremy Hunt’s radical plans, and still is, he asserted that thousands die because there is a shortage of senior doctors during weekends. This is an expedient interpretation of a study which showed that mortality was higher in patients admitted on weekends. Hunt ignored the fact that patients admitted on Friday night are actually sicker than those admitted on Wednesday morning. When logos failed, and after briefly dabbling with pathos, Hunt resorted to eth...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 13, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Dr. Saurabh Jha Tags: Policy Primary care Source Type: blogs

The End of the NHS?
By SAURABH JHA, MD Britain’s health secretary wants to uncharm his way to a revolution. To galvanize support for a seven-day National Health Service (NHS), which the NHS was before Jeremy Hunt’s radical plans, and still is, he asserted that thousands die because there is a shortage of senior doctors during weekends. This is an expedient interpretation of a study which showed that mortality was higher in patients admitted on weekends. Hunt ignored the fact that patients admitted on Friday night are actually sicker than those admitted on Wednesday morning. When logos failed, and after briefly dabbling with pathos, ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 30, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Saurabh Jha Source Type: blogs

Anti-Tobacco Researcher Criticizes Vape Shops for Trying to Get Smokers to Quit
In the tobacco control field, one would expect that we would applaud businesses that are attempting to get as many smokers as possible to quit smoking. And one would think that we would praise companies or businesses whose value proposition is to make cigarette smoking obsolete.Not so, however.The Rest of the StoryInstead of praising businesses that are trying to get as many smokers as possible to quit, most tobacco control groups and advocates are condemning businesses for such efforts.One example is a communication from Dr. Stan Glantz, who criticizes a vaping shop in the UK for trying to get smokers to quit by switching...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - September 18, 2015 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Pfizer's Latest International Pfiascos - Charges of Anti-Competitive Practices, Inflated Prices, Deception and Secrecy
Many big health care organizations seem to just be unable to keep out of trouble, and the bigger they are, the more kinds of trouble. Pfizer Inc, considered to be one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, has supplied us with plenty of stories. Enough new stories about Pfizer have accumulated since last year to do a roundup. Presented in chronological order....Italy Demands Damages from Pfizer for Anti-Trust ViolationsThis story came out in May, 2014, via Reuters,Italy said on Wednesday it was seeking more than a billion euros in damages from multinational drug companies following a...
Source: Health Care Renewal - September 13, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: adverse effects antitrust deception executive compensation health care prices legal settlements marketing Pfizer suppression of medical research vaccines Source Type: blogs

New joints: private providers and rising demand in the English National Health Service
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) - This paper investigates how changes in hospital choice sets affect levels of patient demand for elective hospital care. It exploits a set of reforms in England that opened up the market for publicly-funded patients to private hospitals. Impacts on demand are estimated using variation in distance to these private hospitals, within regions where supply constraints are fixed. It finds that the reforms increased demand for publicly-funded procedures. For public hospitals, volumes remained unchanged but waiting times fell. Taken together, the results provide new insights into how indiv...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - August 26, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Competition and choice Patient involvement, experience and feedback Source Type: blogs

Public hospital spending in England: evidence from National Health Service administrative records
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) - This paper describes how costs vary across the lifecycle, and the concentration of spending among people and over time. It finds that costs per person start to increase after age 50 and escalate after age 70. Spending is highly concentrated in a small section of the population: with 32 per cent of all hospital spending accounted for by 1 per cent of the general population, and 18 per cent of spending by 1 per cent of all patients. There is persistence in spending over time with patients with high spending more likely to have spending in subsequent years, and those with zero expend...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - August 26, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity Source Type: blogs

UK Health Secretary Announces Mandatory "Sunshine Rule" After Investigation Into Industry Relationships With NHS Employees
Discussion For UK Sunshine LawCMS Provides an "Update on Open Payments Reporting" at CBI Transparency and Aggregate Spend ConferencePhysician Payments Sunshine Act: How Many Physicians Are Disputing Their Payments? (Source: Policy and Medicine)
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 25, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs