Re:Why a Health Program That Works in America Failed in Britain
by DanBC on Saturday October 24, 2015 @11:05AM
(#10443799)
The refusal to use randomised controlled trials is infuriating. Supposedly this is something that Jimbo Wales and Ben Goldacre are trying to fix, but they don't seem to have got far with it.
I agree with your comments about the NHS, for most stuff it's great and very cheap. (Sad that I need to say that, but there are people who want to dismantle it).
Re:Why a Health Program That Works in America Failed in Britain
by jwdunne on Saturday October 24, 2015 @03:37PM
(#10444601)
What's sadder is that we have protests by highly capable people, i.e junior doctors, who have dedicated 7 years of schooling and are prepared to dedicate 10 years minimum to the NHS because they are being served an insane deal by Hunt and treated like dirt by his pals in the press.
This government is, with one hand, pushing millions deeper into poverty and a significant portion of that into homelessness. With the other, battering the national health service into a for-profit machine in time for when these desperate souls will need it most.
It's just a shame that many in our nation believe these people to be 'scroungers' and 'not worth helping'. It's far more shameful that these same people don't clock how the news outlets feeding them this crap change their tune like a faulty jukebox.
Sure Start:
But 12 years after the first Sure Start centres opened, one leading academic who was part of the government's official evaluation of the scheme says there is still no clear evidence it has helped children
Asked what evidence there was that Sure Start was helping children, Sir Michael replies: "We don't know - that is still lacking." One major problem, he says, was that ministers ignored calls for a properly controlled evaluation of the programme - in which children would have been randomly assigned to a Sure Start or a non-Sure Start group. He accuses Labour of deliberately ignoring the possibility the programme might not work
Every country can always do better in health care: perfection is not achievable. But most studies I've seen suggest that the UK gets health outcomes that are good, albeit not the best, but it does so for much less money than many systems. When you normalise for costs, the NHS is actually pretty darn good.