Tim Worstall

Most toxic is the role of commercial competition, with Monitor acting as enforcer. By opening every NHS corner to “any qualified provider”, the whole service can be taken over by private companies, with a few token charities and mutuals. NHS hospitals, cherry-picked of lucrative work, risk bankruptcy when left with only complex cases. Stroke care [...]

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Perhaps Mr Lansley knows something the rest of us do not, but on past form I doubt it. Twenty years ago, when senior surgeon at the Royal Hampshire Hospital Paddy Ross inquired of Ken Clarke, then a Tory health secretary, how he anticipated the Health Service would function as an internal market, he replied candidly [...]

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Medical regulators are drawing up new advice for more than 30,000 Britons who have received “metal-on-metal” devices because of fears that they are even more dangerous than previously thought, a Sunday Telegraph investigation has found. Problems occur with such devices when friction between the metal ball and cup causes minuscule metal filings to break off, [...]

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How can £20bn cash cuts and increased marketisation lead to a better NHS? 1) Markets (note, not capitalism, markets) promote innovation better than centrally planned or run systems. 2) Innovation leads to increases in total factor productivity. 3) Increases in tfp are synonymous with (as in, this is the definition of tfp) being able to [...]

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There we all were naively thinking the Olympics would bring pride, excitement and tourism revenue to London this summer. But what none of us has properly accounted for, according to six new papers published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, are the health risks to visitors of stampedes, heatstroke and mass infections. Events ranging from Barack Obama’s [...]

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However, it could never happen, and not because I’m so enlightened, sensitive or any of the other euphemisms for “whining hippie” usually dumped on vegetarians. My conversion to flesh-eating couldn’t happen because, frankly, I’m not stupid enough. As in, I can read. Analysis of more than 6,000 pancreatic cancer cases published in the British Journal [...]

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80mph speed limit ‘risks rise in road deaths and obesity’ Obesity? and a potential rise in obesity due to more people taking advantage of shorter car journeys. Eh? They’re raising the speed limit on motorways for cock’s sake. A motorway journey is not a subsititute for a waddle around to the corner shop for lardy [...]

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There will be statisticians out there who can unpack this better than I: Data released in Parliament show that in the most deprived areas of the country, the mortality rate is as high as 1,500 deaths per 100,000 people in a single year. By contrast the death rate is 1,427 in Rwanda and 1,452 in [...]

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I complained about what they are doing here. We do have, the way that they are counting, an increase in admissions related to alcohol. This is partly because of the following effect: there has been a rise in admissions. Actually, there’s been a 40% or so rise in admissions over the decade. And, if you [...]

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Hospital admissions linked to alcohol problems have reached a record high, prompting fresh concern about the harm being caused by binge drinking. Hospitals in England admitted 1,173,386 patients for treatment for alcohol-related problems in 2010-11, NHS statistics show, up 9% on the 1,056,962 in 2009-10, the first time the figure topped 1 million. In 2002-03, [...]

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Doctor goes into federal government, finds that federal government is incredibly wasteful in health care, moves like a snail, is less efficient that private non-profits. Therefore all health care should be run by federal government. see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

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Dear God, what are we coming to? Government doing something sensible? NHS cancer patients to be offered experimental drugs Cancer patients will get much quicker access to experimental drugs and other treatments still in development, David Cameron will announce today. The biggest cost in pharmaceutical development is the trials. Phase III trials particularly. phase II [...]

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Not there’s any link implied or in reality Loved ones not always told their relative is on controversial ‘death pathway’ NHS doctors are failing to inform up to half of families that their loved ones have been put on a scheme to help end their lives, the Royal College of Physicians has found. Rise in [...]

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What’s happened to England’s rugby team this autumn is obviously not just about money. But it’s an excellent example of something free marketeers often ignore, but that research proves: that adopting a market system does encourage people to think about cash and their individual wellbeing. Indeed this is very true. Market incentives do change behaviour. [...]

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Patients admitted to NHS hospitals for emergency treatment at weekends are almost 10 per cent more likely to die than during the rest of the week, according to a comprehensive new report. Hmm. I think we would start by looking at staffing levels, wouldn’t we? They are the thing which is most likely to vary [...]

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At the ASI. The real reason we want competition in the NHS.

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There is now strong evidence that smoking in vehicles exposes non-smokers to high levels of second hand smoke which is known to be damaging to heath, the BMA said. Because of the small enclosed space inside a car, smoking creates 23 times more toxins than found in a smoky bar, it was claimed. This is [...]

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Barack Obama faced a new and unpredictable hurdle to White House re-election next year when the US supreme court announced it is to rule on whether his healthcare bill, the major legislative achievement of his presidency, is constitutional. The court is to hear the arguments in March next year and is to expected to publish [...]

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Labour MP Valerie Vaz, who sits on the health select committee, said the revelation should prompt second thoughts by ministers: “It is difficult to comprehend how Circle can maintain a proper standard of healthcare while maximising profit; as a company they would have to make a profit, but that can only come if costs are [...]

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If France has socialized medicine then Britain has communist medicine.

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