Wellards Academy

MPs have raised serious concerns that the combination of NHS reform and the drive to save £20bn by 2014 has forced the NHS into short-term 'salami slicing' of resources.

Minimising health service disruption due to government reforms and creating a sustainable and efficient patient-centred NHS should be priorities, MPs have concluded.

Pharmaceutical industry chiefs have told a parliamentary inquiry that legal changes to prevent pharmacies exporting medicines intended for the UK could help ensure supplies.

The Department of Health this week published plans for the design of the NHS Commissioning Board (NHSCB), including its budget and staff.

Although waiting times for hospital treatment improved during November 2011, many more patients are waiting longer under the coalition government.

The government has signed a concordat committing it to work with the telehealth and telecare industries to extend the technologies to 3m patients within five years.

The medical treatments watchdog has issued guidance supporting the use of four new generation cardiac computed tomography scanners in England.

The government agency responsible for medicines' and medical devices' safety has defended itself against criticisms levelled at it over the breast implants scandal.

A charity has called on the government to release more money into the field of dementia research, claiming it is a high-cost disease that lacks the funding commitment spent on other conditions.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley seems to have dodged a major rebellion from clinicians following an inconclusive summit on Thursday of the BMA, Royal College of Nursing and the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges to voice fears over the government's health reforms.

The NHS Commissioning Board should commission genetic and genomic services and the government should commission health economics studies to quantify the costs and benefits of investing in genomic medicine, recommends a report from the human genomics strategy group.

In a 'take note' debate at the Northern Ireland Assembly, members from different parties have praised many of the recommendations in the health and social care review but said the challenge would be in implementing them.