Archive for November, 2007
Improvements, but still cause for concern
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 06/11/2007
A report released last Friday by Civitas, looking at trends in avoidable mortality, found real improvements had been made in England and Wales; avoidable mortality from cancer fell by 15.0% and from circulatory disease by 34.0% between 1999 and 2005. But while this compares quite favourably with improvements made in many European countries, real cause for concern does remain:
• The decline in avoidable deaths from cancer has been less step since 1999, at odds with trends since 1979; which must surely question the effectiveness of NHS Cancer Plan with all the extra money that has come with it.
• Avoidable mortality rates from circulatory disease remain far above most European countries of comparable development. Assuming the best performing country, France, made no improvements in the coming years, and the NHS continued to improve at the same rate as between 1999-2004, it would still take until about 2019 for us to catch up.
The full report may be viewed here.
I broke the law and I won!
Posted by Pete Quentin in European Union on 05/11/2007
A largely unreported news item from Italy has perfectly highlighted the differing attitudes to EU legislation between the member states.
The horrific rape and murder of a woman, allegedly committed by a Romanian immigrant, has shocked the Italian public and brought underlying tensions about immigration out into the open. The Italian government has responded to the crime by approving a measure which would allow police chiefs to expel EU citizens who they believe pose a threat to public safety.
NHS: the ultimate political football
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 01/11/2007
Rudi Giuliani has caused just a bit of a political storm this week for citing poor UK cancer survival rates in an attempt to rile Hilary Clinton’s ’socialised’ healthcare proposals. So now we have hot-shots on both ’sides’ of the US political debate bandying around the merits of the NHS, after the glowing reviews it received in Michael Moore’s questionable polemic, SICKO. I’m not going to get into the argument either way here, but just to point out one particular irony: Alan Johnson has the nerve to tell the Times: “The British NHS should not become a political football in American presidential politics”. If only New Labour could practice what he preaches in the domestic context.