Treatment centres are undermining patient choice, warns BMA

Visa changes could lead to hundreds of doctors leaving the NHS, warns BMA.

Proposed changes to visa rules could lead to hundreds of UK trained doctors leaving the NHS each year, the BMA has warned. In a letter to the Home Office Mark Porter, chair of the BMA, said that recommendations for changes to visa rules made by the Migrations Advisory Committee could harm the medical workforce. In the letter to immigration minister James Brokenshire, Porter asked whether the Ho...

WHO warns over complacency as targets on Ebola are met.

An official leading the World Health Organization’s response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa has warned against complacency as the targets set by the United Nations for safe burial and isolation are met. At the end of October the UN’s Mission for Ebola Emergency Response set two targets to be met by 1 December—that 70% of burials took place in a safe and dignified manner a...

Informed Patient Choice in Treatment Abroad - A Response to Recent Commentaries

Patients in Treatment Centres: Are They All Dependents?

The congruence between self reported drug use and urinalysis data among 89 consecutive opioid dependents at their first contact in an outpatient clinic was examined. For this purpose self reports of drug use within preceding 72 hr, laboratory analysis of urine samples by thin layer chromatography (TLC) were carried out for various drugs. The same samples were also confirmed by gas liquid chroma...

Ombudsman warns of deaths linked to poor sepsis treatment.

By Sophie Blakemore THOUSANDS OF children and adults are dying each year because of a failure to diagnose and provide rapid treatment for severe sepsis, research by the health service ombudsman has revealed. The ombudsman’s first clinical report estimates that 37,000 people die from the infection annually. It focuses on the deaths of ten patients and highlights poor initial assessments and dela...