Author: Andy Cowper

New figures released by the Department of Health show that the take-up of patient choice has fallen back since March, but progress has increased on GP extended opening hours.

Some of the country’s foremost doctors involved in alcohol-related harm have called for an increase in duty on alcohol and a ban on advertising to address the growing alcohol-related health problems the NHS faces.

New figures released by the Department of Health reveal the current and predicted costs of obesity to every primary care trust (PCT) in England.

Shadow Health secretary Andrew Lansley announced that within five years of a Conservative government, patients will have the right to choose a single room. This was the major policy announcement of Lansley’s speech, which hit at the Labour government for healthcare-associated infection rates and also attacked its failure to end mixed-sex hospital ward accommodation.

Lord Crisp, former chief executive of the NHS, has suggested that topping-up of recommended drugs should be made the exception to the NHS system, rather than the rule.