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.

Yes, I am a Rhodes Scholar who is “just” a family doctor. Here’s why.
“So you’re a Rhodes Scholar, and you’re just a family doctor?” If I was paid a dollar each time I’m asked this question, I can safely retire. It seems innocent enough, and it’s usually asked without malice. But the fundamental assumption behind this question alarms me: that family doctors are somehow less competent and less valuable to society than specialist doctors. It’s an assumption that cannot be more wrong. Not only is such implicit stigmatization unfair to family doctors, it also misleads the future of our profession and harms the patients we serve. Are family doctors less competent? Common accusations...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 17, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Yan Yu, MD Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs

Undercover Report on Industry Relationship With NHS Inspires Discussion For UK Sunshine Law
Last week, Telegraph UK published a number of articles based on undercover interviews that targeted the relationships between drug companies and employees of the National Health Service (NHS). The articles noted that that NHS formulary decision-makers may also work as paid company consultants who can recruit other influential NHS employees to advisory board meetings. One interview in particular revealed that these meetings may be held in exotic locations at fancy hotels. In the United Kingdom, NHS hospital trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) produce a formulary of medicines d...
Source: Policy and Medicine - July 28, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs

DW to Watch Shout Out: Martha Lane Fox to lead NHS digital healthcare
The following was posted on UKAuthority.com. Lane Fox to take lead on new digital healthcare Former digital champion to work out practicalities on promoting take-up with National Information Board Martha Lane Fox has been appointed to lead the government’s work on promoting the take-up of new digital technologies in healthcare. The appointment of the former government digital champion and co-founder of lastminute.com was announced by health secretary Jeremy Hunt. Lane Fox’s main task will be to develop practical proposals for the National Information Board (NIB), the body responsible for the campaign. Hunt said: “If ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - July 23, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: DW UK Jeremy Hunt (politician) Martha Lane Fox National Health Service (England) United Kingdom Source Type: blogs

About the National Health Service
The following content was pulled from the National Health Services website. Always a good idea to take a look at other country’s health systems! The NHS was launched in 1948. It was born out of a long-held ideal that good healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth – a principle that remains at its core. With the exception of some charges, such as prescriptions and optical and dental services, the NHS in England remains free at the point of use for anyone who is a UK resident. That is currently more than 64.1 million people in the UK and 53.9 million people in England alone. The NHS in England deals...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - July 7, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: DW UK Source Type: blogs

Improving Patient Safety Incident Reporting? There’s An App For That
Patient safety incident reporting is a valuable source of information for providers, patients, and policymakers. It promotes accountability, learning, and improvement of patient safety culture. However, in high-income countries, incident reporting systems fail to realize their potential: reporting rates are as low as five percent, and the information is rarely used for learning and improvement. A variety of factors account for staffs’ limited reporting, including uncertainty around its impact, fear of blame, and the complexity of reporting interfaces. In low-income countries, incident reporting systems are often complete...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 1, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Kelsey Flott, Naomi Radcliffe, Gianluca Fontana, Brian Capstick, Erik Mayer and Ara Darzi Tags: Costs and Spending Global Health Health IT Innovations in Care Delivery Organization and Delivery British National Health Service CareReport Centre for Health Policy NHS Patient Safety Technology World Innovation Summit for Health Source Type: blogs

HIT Newser: Prison time for HITECH fraud
By MICHELLE RONAN NOTEBOOM CVS Health acquires Target’s healthcare biz CVS Health will pay $1.9 billion to acquire Target’s healthcare businesses, including 1,600 pharmacies and 80 MinuteClinic health clinics. CVS Health also just opened its Boston-based Digital Innovation Lab, which will focus on developing cutting-edge digital services and personalized capabilities that offer an accessible and integrated personal pharmacy and health experience. CVS is making big strides to position itself as both a digital innovator and major provider of primary care services. Look for them to continue to build on existing ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 22, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: michelle Tags: THCB Uncategorized HIT Newser Meaningful Use Source Type: blogs

A Few Thoughts on “Culture” in Healthcare
By MARC-DAVID MUNK, MD The big news in Boston healthcare last month was the announcement that Tufts and Boston University Medical Centers were calling off their proposed merger. The Boston Globe wrote: “Although they did not specify why the deal fell apart, the hospitals were apparently unable to overcome differences in culture, mission, and strategies for the future, analysts said. “Culture always trumps strategy,”said Ellen Lutch Bender, president of the consulting firm Bender Strategies LLC. I don’t know any of the details about the proposed merger, and certainly can’t tell you if the deal made sense....
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 3, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs

Foundation Blogs Round-up: Retail Clinics, E-Cigarettes, and More
Here is a sampling of foundation blog posts that recently caught my eye. Health Care Delivery “Retail Clinics Are Expanding Their Role within the Health Care System,” by Tara Oakman, on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF’s) Culture of Health blog, May 6. In this interesting post, Oakman writes about “doc-in-a-box” clinics. They are convenient and cost much less than a trip to a hospital emergency department and even less than a visit to a physician’s office, she notes. Oakman discusses a recent RWJF-funded study from Manatt Health that says that retail clinics can even assist in addressing some noncli...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 2, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Lee-Lee Prina Tags: GrantWatch Health Professionals Organization and Delivery Health Care Delivery Health Philanthropy Health Reform Smoking Prevention Substance Use Prevention Workforce Source Type: blogs

Big White Wall: Expanding Mental Health Access Through The Digital Sphere
There is a preponderance of evidence that conventional approaches to the provision of mental health care do not meet the needs of a large portion of the population. Due to limitations of scale alone, there is an inherent misalignment between the number of individuals who can benefit from mental health assistance and the availability of traditional services. Yet scale is not the only issue. Stigma, accessibility, and medical models of treatment are equal deterrents to seeking help. Poor mental health impacts us all and carries a huge socio-economic cost. Technology offers a solution and is already helping those experiencing...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 1, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Jen Hyatt Tags: Global Health Health IT Health Professionals Innovations in Care Delivery Long-term Services and Supports Population Health Public Health Big White Wall digital medicine Mental Health NHS Choices SAMHSA Source Type: blogs

JellyBean 024 with Damien Roland
Damien Roland has been at the centre of an interesting grass-roots, bottom up movement in the UK all based around the idea that everyone can make a change.The National Health Service is the 4th biggest employer in the world. Set up after second World War by Aneurin Bevan based on the 1942 Beveridge report and a movement that had started back before first World War. Its been under the cosh for the last few decades as successive governments of every persuasion have tried to cut its funding, privatize its profitable components and downsize it in any way possible. The NHS is expensive, it is inefficient, it makes mistakes. It ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - May 30, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Doug Lynch Tags: JellyBean LITFL Podcast Web Culture Damien Roland NHS Change Day Source Type: blogs

Don’t Just Integrate, Innovate—When It Comes to Mental Health
The sheer number of people living unsupported with some form of psychological or emotional pain suggests that the traditional laws of supply and demand are not working in the mental health arena. As we close on May, as Mental Health Awareness Month, it is important that we raise public awareness of individuals struggling alone with poor mental health and acknowledge the need for a new paradigm that aligns society’s needs with widely available technological and social connectivity. Today, nearly one in every five adults – over 40 million Americans – experience some form of mental illness in any given year. This is a d...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - May 29, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Mental Health Source Type: blogs

Keep Calm and Interoperate On
By SAURABH JHA, MD Following the recession, the Obama administration sought shovel-ready projects. One unlikely shovel wielding aggregate demand was health information technology. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed in 2009 directed 5 % of the stimulus towards digitizing medical records. Computerization of medical records doesn’t induce the images of public works as building freeways during the Great Depression does, but the freeway is a metaphor for exchange of information between electronic health records with the implication that such an exchange is a public good and ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 18, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: OP-ED THCB Meaningful Use Source Type: blogs

Prince Charles’ letters confirm that he’s not fit to be king
Jump to follow-up This post was written for the Spectator Health section, at short notice after the release of the spider letters. The following version is almost the same as appeared there, with a few updates. Some of the later sections are self-plagiarised from earlier posts. Picture: Getty The age of enlightenment was a beautiful thing. People cast aside dogma and authority. They started to think for themselves. Natural science flourished. Understanding of the natural world increased. The hegemony of religion slowly declined. Eventually real universities were created and real democracy developed. The modern world w...
Source: DC's goodscience - May 15, 2015 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Duchy Originals Foundation for Integrated Health Freedom of Information Act Prince Charles Prince of Wales Prince's Foundation Anti-science antiscience badscience CAM herbal medicine herbalism homeopathy politics quackery Que Source Type: blogs

Prince Charles ’ letters confirm that he ’ s not fit to be king
Jump to follow-up This post was written for the Spectator Health section, at short notice after the release of the spider letters. The following version is almost the same as appeared there, with a few updates. Some of the later sections are self-plagiarised from earlier posts. Picture: Getty The age of enlightenment was a beautiful thing. People cast aside dogma and authority. They started to think for themselves. Natural science flourished. Understanding of the natural world increased. The hegemony of religion slowly declined. Eventually real universities were created and real democracy developed. The modern world w...
Source: DC's goodscience - May 15, 2015 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: Duchy Originals Foundation for Integrated Health Freedom of Information Act Prince Charles Prince of Wales Prince's Foundation Anti-science antiscience badscience CAM herbal medicine herbalism homeopathy politics quackery Que Source Type: blogs

It definitely can't happen here
Unfortunately. I don't know how much of this you common riffraff are allowed to read, but a British doc writes a commentary in BMJ asserting that private medical practice is unethical.It can't happen here for a few reasons, not least of which is that unless you want to work for the military or the VA, there isn't much of an option. British M.D.s, as I assume you know, are mostly salaried employees of the National Health Service. However, some people with money think they get better service if they pay a physician out of their own pockets so doctor set up private practices to get themselves richer. But, says Dr. Dean:[L]et�...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 8, 2015 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs