The UK National Health Service (the 'NHS'), encouraged by the 2011 report Innovation Health and Wealth, Accelerating Adoption and Diffusion in the NHS, and empowered by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, is in the process of adopting a new agenda for stimulating innovation in healthcare. For this, the bodies, body materials, and confidential health information of NHS patients may be co-opted....

The National Health Service, yet again, is being cajoled and coerced into being more efficient. Many in the NHS resent this, perhaps understandably given the way in which the concept of efficiency has been devalued by this government. It is, however, an unfortunate reaction because efficiency is not something to be despised or feared. Despite the cajoling, little seems to change. The Royal Comm...

The Italian national health services is under criticism. Although recent legislative changes are intended to introduce managed competition, there is no clear epidemiological view of the health care needs and priorities. Several inconsistencies and inequalities (particularly between the northern and the southern regions) are obvious, both in the health status of the population and in the provisi...

NICE: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and its Recent Guidance for Intrapartum Care The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is an independent organization with legal status as a Special Health Authority to the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales. Its purpose is to develop guidance regarding quality and cost-e¡ectiveness of clinic...

This is a commentary on the article ‘The rise of post-truth populism in pluralist liberal democracies: challenges for health policy.’ It critically examines two of its key concepts: populism and ‘post truth.’ This commentary argues that there are different types of populism, with unclear links to impacts, and that in some ways, ‘post-truth’ has resonances with arguments advanced in the period a...

1. UK National External Quality Assessment Service 2 Department of Haematology, University Hospitals of Leicester 3. NHS Blood and Transplant & University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust 4. Institute of Biomedical Scientists and NHS Blood and Transplant 5. University Hospitals of Leicester 6. International Blood Group Reference Laboratory, NHS Blood and Transplant. 7. Barts Health NHS Tr...

This commentary on the Editorial ‘The politics and analytics of health policy’ by Professor Calum Paton focuses on two issues. First, it points to the unclear links between ideas, ideology, values, and discourse and policy, and warns that discourse is often a poor guide to enacted policy. Second, it suggests that realism, particularly ‘programme theory’ are useful tools for health policy analys...

Background Anas barbariae hepatis et cordis extractum 200K (Oscillococcinum®) is used to treat and prevent seasonal colds and airway inflammatory affections, improve symptom control, and reduce the frequency of respiratory tract infection (RTI) episodes. The objective of this controlled observational study is to investigate, from the Italian National Health Service (NHS) point of view, the role...

Objective: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of bedaquiline plus background drug regimens (BR) for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in Italy. Methods: A Markov model was adapted to the Italian setting to estimate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of bedaquiline plus BR (BBR) versus BR in the treatment of MDR-TB and XDR...

OBJECTIVES To explore the success of the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) 111 urgent care service and describe service activity in the period 2014-2016. DESIGN Comparative mixed method case study of five NHS 111 service providers and analysis of national level routine data on activity and service use. SETTINGS AND DATA Our primary research involved five NHS 111 sites in Eng...