Since its establishment in 1948, the history of the National Health Service (NHS) has been characterized by organisational turbulence and system reform. At the same time, progress in science, medicine and technology throughout the western world have revolutionized the delivery of healthcare. The NHS has become a much loved, if much critiqued, national treasure. It is against this backdrop that ...

BACKGROUND Since the early 1990s, the National Health Service (NHS) has seen the encouragement and growth of research-based practice – described here on, as evidence-based practice (EBP). This policy has been promoted nationally by the UK Department of Health. As a consequence there has been a profusion of guidance, policy documents and service requirements disseminated to all levels of the NHS...

BACKGROUND Although moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to confer a protective effect for specific diseases, current societal patterns of alcohol use impose a huge health and economic burden on modern society. This study presents a method for estimating the health and economic burden of alcohol consumption to the UK National Health Service (NHS). METHODS Previous estimates of NHS cost...

the UK. London: King’s Fund, 2002. 3 Department of Health. Research and development for a first class service. London: DoH, 2000. www.doh.gov.uk/research/documents/rd3/ first_class_service.pdf (accessed 3 July 2003). 4 Department of Health website. www.doh.gov.uk/research/ (accessed 3 July 2003). 5 Culyer A. Supporting research and development in the NHS. Report of the Department of Health Rese...

Personalised nutrition (PN) has the potential to reduce disease risk and optimise health and performance. Although previous research has shown good acceptance of the concept of PN in the UK, preferences regarding the delivery of a PN service (e.g. online v. face-to-face) are not fully understood. It is anticipated that the presence of a free at point of delivery healthcare system, the National ...

CAMILO DIAZ, CHRIS J. O’CALLAGHAN, AZRA KHAN and ANDREW ILCHYSHYN Department of Dermatology, City Hospital NHS Trust, Birmingham, UK, Ecology and Epidemiology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK and Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, Public Health Laboratory Service, Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital,...

Recent disclosures of failures of care in the National Health Service (NHS) in England have led to debates about compassion deficits disallowing health professionals to provide high quality responsive care. While the link between high quality care and compassion is often taken for granted, it is less obvious how compassion – often originating in the individual’s emotional response – can become ...

The National Health Service (NHS) is the largest employer in the UK and since the late 1990s has gone through a period of unprecedented change in a wide range of areas from introduction of the NHS plan (Department of Health, 2000) designed to help the NHS meet the needs of patients and improve health outcomes; to the establishment of NHS Foundation Trusts in 2004 which have financial freedoms a...

This paper provides an overview of how a proven secure solution for the ElectronicTransfer of Prescriptions (ETP), that it is felt could be integrated successfully into the UK National Health Service (NHS), was developed. The described Electronic Prescriptions Processing project commenced in September 2000 and since that time has gone through a lifecycle of requirements elicitation, design and ...

I am very proud of living in the UK where there is a National Health Service (NHS) that is (more or less) free at the point of delivery. However, it is becoming widely acknowledged that the health service in England needs to change significantly if it is going to survive the next decade and beyond. The new chief executive of NHS England (Simon Stevens) has tried to tackle this head on and laid ...