Interesting medical news thread

I thought that was what you meant. You'd think this stuff would be common sense.

However, it does tend to impact more on the already sick than the worried well, and therefore is not a major vote winner. It is would also take a massive effort to implement quickly.

Competition would completely discourage this: you'd end up either with a patchwork of companies trying simulataneously to compete and work together or some sort of monopoly from a jack of all trades (TescoCare has a nice ring to it).

The point is though that it should save money. The NHS is actually a fairly efficient health system but that doesn't mean there is a lot of wastage. My aunt was a surgical patient at a hospital in Glasgow for over 2 months before they decided to transfer her to a specialist unit at another hospital. After arriving at the specialist unit she was out within two weeks, after an operation. If this had happened at the start then she wouldn't have taken up that bed for 2 months and therefore saved a heap of resources. If we had a competitive market in healthcare the above transfer would never ever happen.

On the other side those pro-competition would say it encourages patient choice - my aunt could have chosen to go to the specialist unit. They would also say it means hospitals have to perform better to compete for services.

In Scotland we have a complete different commissioning system - we have geographical NHS boards who provide funding directly to hospitals and GP practices. We don't commission services and there is no plans to introduce competition or allow private hospitals to compete for services. However, I still want to see us making a national effort to be more integrated.

EDIT: All of the above and my previous posts are my opinion. I would be interested to read opinions from anyone who does support competition?

tbh i would view the above as an argument for better organisation than privatisation. I was genuinely shocked when I read recently that it is up to individual hospitals, and often departments, (again, this may just be in england) to buy their resources as opposed to a central buying system. One hospital saved over 200 grand just by bulk buying one manufacturers gloves.

Proposals for a university admissions system where students apply after they have their results have been published by the UK university admissions body.

"We see that across three A levels, fewer than 10% of applicants actually have all three predicted correctly. Would those be people who might have made a different choice if they'd known what their outcomes were?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15492470





Now how will this work for medicine? With interviews and all.

Some folks at Warwick used a 3D printer to help some surgeons who had to repair a badly fractured pelvis. Scans of the patient allowed them to create a model, which helped them plan how to approach it.

Reported on Channel 4

Some folks at Warwick used a 3D printer to help some surgeons who had to repair a badly fractured pelvis. Scans of the patient allowed them to create a model, which helped them plan how to approach it.

Reported on Channel 4

I read about 3D printing in new scientist and wondered how it might be applied to medicine. Perhaps we could create joint replacements/splints. This doctor has gone the extra mile and implemented it...

VIDEO: Tech geek surgeon saves NHS money

Any other ideas on how 3D printing might be applied to medicine?

There is also the guy who had a new trachea grown from stem cells which is very very cool. http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/08/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/

Oh yeaaah I read this in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago! It's on my list of most interesting articles in the notebook I'm keeping. It's a great achievement for stem cell research and encourages a promising future. However, in New Scientist, I read that the trachea wasn't fully created with stem cells. Rather, the trachea was built custom-suited with prosthetic tissue and then coated with his own cells (the stem cells) taken from the lining of his nose.

So, whilst it's a huge step forward, we haven't quite yet understood the biology to grow the whole thing from scratch (which would be much more exciting).

Not really. We do understand how it forms in vivo, but this is a much more sensible way to grow it in vitro. Saying that we need to grow it from scratch would be like saying "oh it's nice that we can now use this wonderful new technique to grow enough food for everyone in the world, but I will only be happy when we can rehabilitate the political and ecosystem effects that are responsible for famines in the first place." Elegant shortcuts are great, learn to love them!

There's an even cooler method which brings together what you were saying about 3D printers

I think you are confusing accidental discoveries with basic science (which annoying marketing people call Blue Sky Research). Of course basic scientific research is important to modern medical advances. It's the foundation upon which applied research can build.

There isn't that much similarity, accidental discoveries are quite far removed. They still require directed research to bring them up to a useful state. I hate to correct you, but basic science DOES have a clear purpose and IS trying to prove a given hypothesis...it's just that purpose and hypothesis doesn't have an obvious and direct application. For example, I have a friend who researches how flies smell things. Why? So we can understand how flies smell things. That's basic science. Then there's applied research, like 'find the causes of X disease', and translational research which is 'given what these basic researchers have found about how flies smell things, create a perfect decoy for mosquitos in order to avoid malarial transmission'.

It's not just mucking around with no clear purpose.

Can someone please explain the reform to me as still am slightly confused. I understand they are planning on getting rid of the PCT. They are instead making a group called the commissioning group which includes GPS, nurses, clinicians etc. I understand that GPS basically get more power and decide where funding should go.

HOWEVER what i dont understand is why people are saying it increases competition which is bad? What competition are they talking about?

Also dont understand how people are referring to this as privatisation of the NHS?

Yeah I wasn't trying to be rude, I just thought it best to clarify.

There's a place for both. Personally I think a lot of the best 'basic' research these days are large scale data-mining operations. For example, there's consortia who are spending millions simply on cataloguing the genomes, clinical data, expression data etc of different tumours, so that then other researchers can come along and use that as a hugely valuable resource.