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Don’t lecture the drinkers, just make them responsible

Mark Littlewood

6 July 2010

7 comments

Alcohol consumption is now a major problem in British society. Drunken teenagers are running rampant in our town centres. Accident and emergency wards are chock-a-block with people who have fallen...

People want big health and big education, not big government

Kristian Niemietz

14 May 2010

5 comments

It is easy to be pessimistic about Britain’s future economic prospects. The Lib-Con coalition agreement contains policies which are troubling. Indeed, there is a danger the...

What should be done when the social democrats win?

Mark Littlewood

6 May 2010

3 comments

The next government of the United Kingdom will have to depart wildly from its manifesto commitments in order to rebuild the nation’s finances. In the closing stages of the election campaign,...

The NHS should be financing a campaign for private hospitals

Terry Arthur

20 April 2010

1 comment

Many years ago I was in hospital for a minor operation. The tiny ward had room for four but there was only one other occupant; an old man who was very ill. A nurse asked me if I could chat to him to...

NICE: exit the technocrat, enter the lobbyist?

Kristian Niemietz

7 December 2009

3 comments

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which some label the government’s “drug rationing body”, recently barred an expensive liver cancer drug from being...

Government nationalises the nursing profession

Philip Booth

12 November 2009

16 comments

The government has just announced that nursing will become an all-graduate profession from 2013. I don’t want to go down the route of discussing whether degrees are appropriate for nurses, an...

Beating the endowment effect: denationalising healthcare, step by step

Kristian Niemietz

20 October 2009

6 comments

We all know what would happen if the state nationalised all pubs, integrated them into a “National Pub Service”, and decided that beer should be free at the point of use. Even ignoring...

Drink driving is bad, but the NHS is far worse

Helen Evans

18 September 2009

22 comments

The latest figures reveal that 430 people were killed in drink-drive accidents in Britain in 2008. This is a worrying statistic that brings home the risks faced by road users, but it pales into...

The NHS is safe in their hands – unfortunately

Philip Booth

14 August 2009

20 comments

In the row over Daniel Hannan’s comments on the NHS, David Cameron said: “Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS – including my own family.” I suppose...

Why public spending cuts are an historic opportunity for UK healthcare

Helen Evans

28 July 2009

14 comments

Not a day goes by now without the UK press having story after story about necessary and impending public spending cuts to solve our problematic national debt. Although there is much speculation...

No frills, please: how private healthcare is spreading to India’s poor

Kristian Niemietz

27 April 2009

6 comments

In the early 1990s, Nigel Lawson dubbed the NHS “the closest thing the English have to a religion”. Today, this religion has probably been replaced by a more disillusioned belief that...

Government health services are failing patients

Richard Wellings

8 January 2009

comments

State-dominated healthcare systems are failing the poor and chronically sick. And Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is one of the worst examples. It is plagued by waste,...

The government’s decision on top-up payments is welcome

John Spiers

5 November 2008

6 comments

One of the commonest complaints about the NHS is: “I’ve paid in all my life, so why can’t I have…” Yet patients still have no power to command a necessarily personal,...

Individual health savings accounts will improve access and performance

John Spiers

29 October 2008

2 comments

A key issue in individual access to healthcare is who decides who shall get what, when and how. Which economic instruments and direct incentives can do most to deliver universal access, improved...

Mandelson should refer NHS monopolies to the Office of Fair Trading

John Spiers

15 October 2008

comments

How radical will the new Lord Mandelson be in seeking to reinvigorate the ‘New Labour’ brand? With the regulatory levers in his fresh hands he has a key opportunity to free the...

Top-up insurance: a way out of the healthcare rationing trap

Kristian Niemietz

23 September 2008

comments

The Liberal Democrats recently became the first major political party to endorse fully the right of patients to top-up their National Health Service care privately. Labour and the Conservatives...

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