According to a new survey, missed appointments costs the National Health Service in the UK £21m.Apparently in Scotland alone every year, more than 1 million GP appointments and over 500,000 n
Hurricane Katrina has left a trail of devastation in the Mississippi Gulf Coast area, including such serious damage to hospitals that three in the area have had to be evacuated.According to the
According to the UK Department of Health, the first results from a scheme, called the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), show that by performing beyond expectation, family doctors earned their surger
The BMA this week called on the Scottish Executive to tackle the medical academic recruitment crisis that threatens to jeopardise plans to increase the number of medical students being educated in Scot
Early results from the EuroAction hospital project, announced today at the European Society of Cardiology, demonstrate how a nurse-led multidisciplinary programme, organised in busy general hospitals
An Australian Health provider has been given a hefty fine after a psychiatric nurse, on duty in a hospital in New South Wales, was assaulted by a patient.Hunter New England Health has been fined more than $100,000 over an incident at its Moriss
The enrollment at U.S. medical schools has changed very little over the last 10 years, according to an article in the September 7 issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, a th
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA's General Practitioners Committee (GPC), commenting on the Government's access announcement, said the Government was failing to tackle the underlying capacity pro
According to a health service watchdog in the UK, getting in to see the doctor is not as easy as it should be.Apparently as many as one-third of the public are unable to book an appointment with their doctor more than three days in advance.
Despite a record number of female medical students, medicine remains a white male dominated profession - but its days as such are numbered, says a paper in this week's British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Many public utilities have independent regulators to see that commercial interests and unfair pricing do not disadvantage the public.
At present the UK does not have an independent regulator of healthcare reform, yet the consequences of ill judged reform of the NHS may inflict long term damage to the delivery of health care to its citizens, says Ian Kunkler, a consultant at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh.
He believes that the shortcomings of the private finance initiative are persuasive arguments for an independent regulator, and suggests that key tests might include equity of access to care; collaboration between healthcare professionals, managers, and patients, and financial prudency and transparency.
"If these golden rules were met, the UK government would be more likely to carry the support of the public and NHS professionals to meet the healthcare challenges of the 21st century," he concludes.
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