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 ...

RAli 1991;303:1257-8 Admission arrangements for elective surgery often seem archaic and out of step with the public's experience of services outside the National Health Service. In a consumer oriented NHS it would clearly be preferable to offer most patients a mutually agreeable date for admission. We consider here the place of booked admission systems within the NHS and discuss surgeons' own e...

The paper entitled ‘Patient Safety: Whose Vision?’ examined the concept of ‘patient safety’ and attempted to unravel its inherent complexity by examining the perceptions of a range NHS managers and professionals. It drew from a recently completed National Institute for Health Research Service Delivery and Organisation (NIHR SDO) programme commissioned study, which employed qualitative methods t...

Physician assistants (PAs) have been an integral part of the emergency medicine team in the USA for the past 30 years. This review outlines the reasons why PAs can play a vital role in UK National Health Service (NHS). The experience of American PAs working in one NHS trust are discussed, highlighting the cultural differences in the environment of the emergency departments in the two countries ...

The National Health Service, in its report An organisation with memory, has called for a fundamental rethinking of the way the healthcare system learns from error. The NHS further details its goal to reduce serious medication errors by 40% in a second report entitled Building a safer NHS: improving medication safety. This report calls for a review of paediatric medication delivery systems to as...

1Department of Haematology, Imperial College Healthcare National Health Service (NHS) Trust, Hammersmith and St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Department of Haematology, Democritus University of Thrace Medical School, Alexandroupolis, Greece; 3Department of Histopathology, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Hammersmith and St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial Col...

ntroduced in 1948 by the Labor Party, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is based on the principle that everyone is entitled to any kind of medical treatment for any condition, free of charge. The NHS is not insurance-based but is funded almost exclusively from general tax revenues. The aggregate NHS budget is fixed every year, based on the previous year's budget and adjusted for inflation...

OBJECTIVE To identify and describe the current state of clinical ethics support services in the UK. DESIGN A series of questionnaire surveys of key individuals in National Health Service (NHS) trusts, health authorities, health boards, local research ethics committees and health professional organisations. Interviews with chairmen/women of clinical ethics committees identified in the surveys....

BACKGROUND National Health Service (NHS) occupational health departments assist in the identification and assessment of substance-use disorders among health care workers (HCWs) and are involved in the management of an individual's return to work after treatment. AIMS To determine the experience and training of NHS occupational health physicians (OHPs) in identifying substance misuse among HCW...

Background: In the United Kingdom patient experience is being established as a key determinant in informing commissioning decisions and in shaping healthcare delivery. This led to the publication of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on patient experience in adult National Health Service (NHS) services: improving the experience of care for people using adu...