Tim Worstall

What bastards, eh? A row has broken out over a debt-ridden NHS hospital being handed over to a private company that will keep a large chunk of the millions of pounds in savings it will seek to make. Bosses at Circle, which is running the Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust in Cambridgeshire, have insisted they will [...]

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Diabetes threatens to ‘bankrupt’ NHS within a generation Treatment will use £16.9bn of budget as the number of diabetics rises from 3.8m patients to 6.25m by 2035 I don’t really see what the problem is. We pay for the NHS to treat any diseases or illnesses that we might develop. More of us get diabetes? [...]

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Christina McAnea, the head of health at Unison, the largest health union, which will present its evidence on regional pay on Monday at its health conference, said: “The Department of Health’s evidence on regional pay is built on sand. For a government that says it wants to cut paperwork, introducing regional pay would be a [...]

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In a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, the 81-year-old billionaire revealed that he has stage one prostate cancer but his condition “is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way”. I’m not quite sure whether it is many, most or nearly all 81 year old men who have prostate cancer. For most, many, [...]

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One in four women have bought the wrong medication after misdiagnosing themselves on the internet and one in ten has suffered unpleasant side effects as a result, research suggests. That sounds bad but: Iatrogenesis is a major phenomenon, and a severe risk to patients. A study carried out in 1981 more than one-third of illnesses [...]

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When I was born, almost 50 years ago, in the bitter winter of 1963, the National Health Service was just 15 years old. It must still have been hard for people to believe that – for the first time in the history of these islands – they could fall ill without risking financial ruin, that [...]

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A new treatment for prostate cancer can rid the disease from nine in ten men without debilitating side effects, a study has found, leading to new hope for tens of thousands of men. Glad they start to get it sorted out as I enter the age group where I might be interested in their having [...]

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This thing about obesity, this reason that everything should be taxed and regulated: According to the latest research, 48% of men and 43% of women in the UK will be obese by 2030, a trend that will significantly increase the prevalence of strokes, heart disease and cancer, and lead to higher costs for the NHS. [...]

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Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because ‘despicable’ age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned. Yes, obviously. For the system is set up to do this. Indeed, I’ve seen Polly commending the NHS for taking such a robust attitude to expense control. Why spend fortunes [...]

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Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying by a fifth, The likelihood of dying is one in one. Unity, 100%. OK, I’ll give you the Virgin Mary, the Prophet Elijah and even Lazarus Long if you wish. Still indistinguishable from one, the chance of dying.

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So we offed the bird next door: A controversial system of mobile euthanasia units that will travel around the country to respond to the wishes of sick people who wish to end their lives has been launched in the Netherlands. The scheme, which started on Thursday , will send teams of specially trained doctors and [...]

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The NHS was always rationed. What matters is whether it is done rationally or haphazardly, nationally or by postcode, in public or secretly. Entering its greatest ever cash crisis, it matters more than ever how its shrinking funds are spent. Indeed, something free at the point of use and also highly desirable will need some [...]

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Doctors call for rethink after large study finds prescribed pills could be associated with up to 0.5m extra deaths a year in US That’s a lot, certainly. The study was carried out in the US, where up to 10% of the adult population took sleeping pills in 2010. The authors estimate that sleeping pills may [...]

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Targets always tempt statistical massaging, but the extremity of this cheating means no waiting-list figures can be trusted. Indeed they do. Central setting of targets is always subject to gaming by those at the front end. This is exactly what people are complaining about about the banks. That hitting a short term target boosts the [...]

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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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