Nhs

For years, Britain has been failing to train enough doctors and has been importing them instead. This has been a well-known and much lamented fact, raising several ethical issues. Is it right for us to rob developing countries of their much-needed medics? Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, said at the Spectator’s health summit this week that Britain should stop ‘denuding low-income countries of health professionals they need’. Quite so. Which makes it all the more shocking that last year, for the first time ever, the UK imported more doctors than it trained. And the problem Stevens highlights has, under his leadership, been getting steadily worse.  Look at the

Some medical experts claim that Lyme disease is worse than cancer. It’s not a competition, but I do know one thing: at least if you’ve got the Big C you get sympathy, understanding and prompt treatment. With Lyme you’re pretty much on your own. This isn’t a plea for public sympathy. I’ve had Lyme for God knows how long — decades possibly — and though it has disrupted my health and my life in myriad weird, torturous and sometimes hideous ways, I still consider myself one of the fortunate ones. First, it hasn’t killed me; second, I’ve had some state-of-the-art stem cell treatment which with luck will eventually cure me.

‘Gene test for sale on NHS,’ blared the headlines last weekend, sparking some anxiety and confusion. The story is that Genomics England, a company owned by the Department of Health, has announced that it’s seeking people who are willing to pay to have their DNA sequenced. The fee has not yet been specified but it will probably be around £500, depending on how much the analysis is subsidised. Each volunteer will receive a personalised health report and will agree to share their anonymised genetic data with researchers in the hope of improving genetic prediction of diseases and creating the sort of healthcare that’s fit for the future. The story has

Today’s NHS 10-year plan is the health service’s response to the £20.5 billion funding boost announced by ministers last year. The Prime Minister is unveiling further details of the plan this morning, with NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens doing his own broadcast tour to sell it. He argues that the plan ‘tackles head-on the pressures our staff face’ and also ‘sets a practical, costed, phased route map for the NHS’s priorities for care quality and outcomes improvement for the decade ahead’. The plan is a good metaphor for the May government, too: its announcement was delayed from its original launch date of late autumn, there is a £1 billion

Obviously it is wrong to attack NHS staff. But does the government’s new ‘zero tolerance’ policy consider why such attacks take place? There are eternal reasons, such as the inherent nastiness of some people, and wider social ones, such as drug abuse. Are there also specific NHS-related ones too, though? The worst aspects of the NHS are not usually medical: they are to do with a bureaucracy which puts patients last. It is utterly extraordinary, for example, that a waiting time of four hours in A&E is now the norm or even, it would seem, the (often missed) target. Often have I sat there wondering not at the aggression of

Since the Budget, economists have pointed out that Britain is turning into a health service with a government attached. The NHS was protected from what Philip Hammond calls ‘austerity’, yet it has emerged as the big winner from his abandonment of the old Tory idea that government should live within its means. The plan is for more debt, more spending, more tax and a lot more NHS. At the start of the last decade, the NHS accounted for 23 per cent of government spending on public services: this figure is now set to rise to 39 per cent. And then, no doubt, further still. Simon Stevens, the chief executive of

Matt Hancock has been ambitious for a big Cabinet job for a good while. He’s finally got it, and today the new Health Secretary had his first outing in the Commons with departmental questions. Every new Secretary of State wants to make their mark on the job, showing how they’re different to their predecessor, and setting out their priorities for the portfolio. Jeremy Hunt was particularly good at the latter, making patient safety his focus as Health Secretary. Hancock has clearly paid attention to how the longest-serving Health Secretary approached the job, and last week gave a speech setting out three priorities: workforce, technology and prevention. His message was clear

It’s a measure of how much the debate around mental health has changed that Matt Hancock’s latest announcement on social prescribing for mental illness isn’t being written up as mere quackery. The Health and Social Care Secretary today pledged a £4.5 million fund for these schemes, which include gardening, arts clubs, running and so on. Hancock is worried about possible over-prescription of anti-depressants and the associated risk of diagnosis creep, whereby people who are not depressed but quite understandably struggling with life events such as a bereavement are given a medical diagnosis and handed pills that aren’t really going to help them. As I’ve written before, anti-depressants are not without