The idea needed to be given consideration, Mr Johnson argued in a speech on public health at the Royal Society of Arts yesterday.
‘The chief medical officer was right to start a debate about whether there should be a minimum unit price for alcohol, given all we know about the harm that excessive drinking can cause,’ he said.
‘But it’s an idea that needs to be considered very carefully,’ he Read more »
The DoH is reviewing the list of long-term conditions that are exempt from prescription charges. In its submission to the review, the BMA says that extending exemptions without a fundamental overhaul of the whole system will ‘create a new set of arbitrary winners and losers’.
The BMA believes that the current system is ‘outdated, iniquitous and detrimental to the health of many patients’. It questions the value Read more »
It reveals that the cost of inactivity to each PCT is 5m a year.
Launched by public health minister Dawn Primarolo it also advocates free swimming and a dance working group to harness a ‘Strictly Come Dancing fever that has swept the nation’.
2,012 walking routes across England are to be unveiled in the run up to the London Olympics and a Physical Activity Alliance will pool the resources of the voluntary and Read more »
The college’s position is set out in its response to the DoH’s consultation on reforming the way indicators in the quality framework (QOF) are reviewed.
It acknowledged that there is, as yet, no evidence to indicate that it is safe and appropriate to remove incentives when there has been a consistent plateauing of achievement. However, it said it welcomed the proposed approach ‘on the whole’.
Clear Read more »
The college’s position is set out in its response to the DoH’s consultation on reforming the way indicators in the quality framework (QOF) are reviewed.
It acknowledged that there is, as yet, no evidence to indicate that it is safe and appropriate to remove incentives when there has been a consistent plateauing of achievement. However, it said it welcomed the proposed approach ‘on the whole’.
Clear Read more »
Susan Anderson, the CBI’s director of public services, offered her congratulations to the Dr Meldrum and a consortium of other GPs for their success in winning a contract to run the new centre in Bridlington, east Yorkshire.
‘These new centres promise to offer patients the friendly opening hours they want, something that will help them recover faster and reduce absence that the country can ill afford in the current economic Read more »
Giving new providers the chance to compete for contracts would increase access to primary care, the confederation said. Its comments come in response to a Scottish Government consultation on eligibility criteria for providers of primary care services.
Assistant director David Lonsdale said CBI Scotland feared that ‘dogmatic opposition’ to letting new independent providers offer GP services would mean patients lose Read more »
The UK Organ Donation Taskforce concluded that assuming organs could be used unless people opted out was unlikely to increase the amount of organs available.
‘Such a system has the potential to undermine the concept of donation as a gift, [and] erode trust in NHS professionals,’ the report said.
Instead, health secretary Alan Johnson has announced a 4.5 million campaign to persuade 25 million people to sign Read more »
