Highly specialised technology (HST) evaluations in England are recommendations by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on use of new existing highly medicines very rare conditions within Service (NHS). In Scotland, treatments considered eligible ultra-orphan pathway after initial assessment available NHS; Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) will reassess medicine decide ...

Conscious sedation is an integral part of modern day dental care and should be delivered through a high quality, effective and evidence-based approach. Commissioning of NHS dental services in England is currently under review by NHS England and the National Dental Commissioning Group. This group has identified the management of vulnerable people including anxious patients, as one of its priorit...

AIMS To measure the impact of the suspension of tobacco control mass media campaigns in England in April 2010 on measures of smoking cessation behaviour. DESIGN Interrupted time series design using routinely collected population-level data. Analysis of use of a range of types of smoking cessation support using segmented negative binomial regression. SETTING England. MEASUREMENTS Use of no...

The article by Brenna and Spandonaro on interregional mobility for acute hospital care in Italy raises important issues concerning social and territorial equity in a healthcare system. Based on Regions and private providers’ strategic behavior, the hypothesis adopted to explain patient cross-border mobility (CBM), demonstrated by statistical analysis, may be further explored using qualitative m...

The paper by Gilbert et al. should be on the table of every politician and National Health Service (NHS) manager in the run up to the general election, when the NHS is at the hustings. They have raised profound moral dilemmas of the internal and external market in their present form, such as the practicalities of distributive justice and the enhancement of autonomy – to which are added the pres...

INTRODUCTION Timely access to the right kind of support for people experiencing a mental health crisis can be problematic. The voluntary sector (VS) plays a key role in providing support and enabling access, but there is a knowledge gap concerning its contribution and interface with public services in mental health crisis care. This study aims to address this. METHODS AND ANALYSIS The study h...

The ‘Cultivating Compassion’ project was developed in response to a research and innovation call relating to compassion training for National Health Service staff in the South East of England. The project aims included: the use of Appreciative Inquiry to develop, implement and evaluate a sustainable and evidence based programme of compassion awareness training through engaging with a diverse gr...

OBJECTIVES High-cost antivascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) medicines for eye disorders challenge ophthalmologists and policymakers to provide fair access for patients while minimising costs. We describe the growth in the use and costs of these medicines and measure inequalities in access. DESIGN Longitudinal study using Hospital Episode Statistics (2005/2006 to 2014/2015) and hos...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate potential return on investment of the National Health Service Diabetes Prevention Programme (NHS DPP) in England and estimate which population subgroups are likely to benefit most in terms of cost-effectiveness, cost-savings and health benefits. DESIGN Economic analysis using the School for Public Health Research Diabetes Prevention Model. SETTING England 2015-2016. ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the extent to which UK National Health Service (NHS) smoking cessation services in England reach smokers and support them to quit at four weeks, and to identify which service and area characteristics contribute to observed outcomes. DESIGN Ordinary least squares regression was used to investigate local smoking outcomes in relation to characteristics of health authoriti...