Thank you David. I also watched those videos from last session about Americans in the ques for volunteering medical treatment and I have to admit it was very disturbing. Not because people are waiting for help and suffering in pain, but the fact that this is happening in the affluent country like US which claims itself as most Powerful, most Developed and Richest country in the world. That just does not make any sense to me at all.

P.S. I am missing the assignment description. Is this something that will be presented to us later in the module?

Thank you

Simona

A webcast of the launch of the Lancet series on universal health care was aired yesterday. Here are the details plus links to the relevant papers.

Please note this meeting:

Can WHO survive?

in the series Global Health Lab Discussions

Date: Tuesday 16 October 2012 
Time: 5:15 pm - 6:45 pm
Venue: John Snow Lecture Theatre, LSHTM, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK
Type of event: Seminar 
Speaker(s): Gill Walt, LSHTM, Kathryn Tyson, UK Department of Health, Anders Nordström, Ambassador for Global Health, Sweden

http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/events/2012/10/can-who-survive

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/philip-hammond-games-humanised-the-face-of-armed-forces-8038712.html

This is an article by the defence secretary explaining his change in views re the public sector. The examples are regarding the armed forces but I think are relevant.

I particularly like this part

"We don't ask the military to prepare to maybe be able to do something or to have an 80 per cent chance of delivering. We ask the military to be in a position that, if we ask them to do a task, they are absolutely able to do it for us."

He goes on to say that he thinks that the private sector can learn from the public sector.

The video on the American queues for healthcare was really interesting and especially when the Doctor said that "care shouldn't need to be provided for the worlds richest country". It really hit me as to how rich America is and how little is pumped into the correct avenues to provide healthcare for all.

I found this video - whilst a little long, it details the crisis in America nicely.

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/peter_jennings_reporting_breakdown_americas_health_insurance_crisis

some interesting reading from italy on the woes of privatizing healthcare:

http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2012/09/28/jech-2011-200640.abstract

david

Two papers on corruption.

You can find HERE and HERE two research papers dealing with corruption, a topic which came up in one of the seminar groups this week.

Corruption is used to refer to a wide range of activities such as stealing during the procurement process, commercial influence over clinical trial results and reporting, over-billing, and informal payments to medical staff. There is a literature on each (a very large literature so far as pharmaecutical companies are concerned) and every health system is affected to some degree by activities that can be loosely described as corrupt. The papers I have selected deal with informal payments, widely seen as a major problem in several health systems. They illustrate two approaches to defining and studying this type of corruption systematically.   

Two interesting articles about the NHS

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/03/private-contracts-signed-nhs-privatisation?CMP=twt_gu

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/02/why-i-quit-nhs-commissioning-champion#start-of-comments 

A quick summary of the United States Health Care System by Kaiser Permanente (2011):

http://xnet.kp.org/kpinternational/docs/Summary%20of%20US%20Health%20Care%20System%20Jan%202011.pdf

Came across this interesting article 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/healthcare-network/2011/may/11/european-healthcare-services-belgium-france-germany-sweden

How European nations run national health services

Interesting article about spending in the NHS

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/who-benefits-nhs-surplus-not-patients

This time Panorama really raised my eyebrows and one main question: If NHS reform is going towards giving power to GPs to rationalise the patients need, how can the system be protected from abusers like those demonstrated in the programme. The other important point is that there is already a vicious web of "good givers", for example receptionist X who  do not question anybody trying to register with GP Y, because she/he been told so by GP Y and/or a third party Z. 

Maybe gov should actually concentrate on strengthening the existing system, and make sure the patients records are checked under all/more requirements. And NHS will not loose those millions that is loosing now. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nbryp/Panorama_Britains_Secret_Health_Tourists/

SEMINAR and READING LECTURE 4

Reading for lecture 4 has been reviewed. 

Essential reading will now consist of the lecture notes (posted in the 'module information' section) and the paper by Brett, which you can find HERE.

The seminar task remains unchanged and is as follows:

A class discussion of a recent article by Alan Brett, “American Values” – A Smoke Screen in the Debate on Health Care Reform (N Engl J Med 2009;361: 440-1). Come prepared to discuss the following questions:

• What role does ‘choice’ play in the US health care reform debate?
• What according to Brett is the connection between ‘choice’ and markets?
• How does Brett rebut the choice argument?
• What alternative approach does he suggest?

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

LECTURE NOTES WILL NOW BE PUT ON QM PLUS WEEK BY WEEK.

SEMINAR DATES WILL IN FUTURE BE SHOWN WITH THE SEMINAR TASK AND DISCUSSION LEADERS.

ESSENTIAL READING WILL BE AMENDED WEEK BY WEEK. HOWEVER, SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL READING WILL REMAIN IN THE LECTURE NOTES.

Seminar group 3 briefly discussed pressures on family doctors to prescribe. By coincidence, HERE is the issue reported in this week's BMJ in the context of antibiotics in the Indian market:

"Patient's mother: "Doctor, can you please prescribe an antibiotic. My 4 year old child has been suffering from diarrhoea for the past three days."

Doctor: "Madam, there's no need for an antibiotic. This is a viral infection, which is self limiting. Antibiotics may, in fact, make the child worse."

Mother: "But doctor, I have only come to you to get antibiotics. I am already doing the rest of the treatment. What is the point in my spending two hours getting the child here, taking half a day's leave from the office, and paying your fee, without getting an antibiotic? I could have ordered norfloxacin from the chemist and spent less money and less time."

NOTICE REGARDING LECTURE WEEK 5

I have changed the lecture order so that the lecture on policy-making originally intended for week 5 will now take place in week 10. Accordingly, all subsequent lectures have been brought forward one week and next week's lecture (week 5) will now cover financing health care. The seminar task and reading have been modified in line with the review process agreed this week.

The change has been made so that we have an earlier opportunity to look at the analyses that will be part of your assignment.

Found this article on the BMJ about changes to the health system in Spain 

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/10/22/aser-garcia-rada-the-end-of-a-public-healthcare-system-in-spain/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bmj%2Fblogs+%28Latest+BMJ+blogs%29&g=widget_bmjblogs 

Thanks Sultana and Lindsay for the very interesting articles. I also enjoyed yesterday's lecture very much, thank you David.

Thank you all for the articles and feedback.

Regarding the article on Spain, I have an earlier paper from June that says a Royal Decree Law has been used in Spain to undermine the national health service. HERE. Portugal and Italy are also mentioned. 

I'm also pleased to say that Dr Elias Kondilis from Greece has just come to work with us. He is about to publish a paper on the Greek health system and the financial crisis.

Dr Elias Kondilis, who is visiting the Centre, recently published THIS paper on the economic crisis and primary care reform in Greece.

Just posted to lecture 5 section: the slides used in seminar 2 and two references to World Bank and IMF documents setting out arguments about the need to control health spending for fiscal reasons. These documents are optional reading and should only be accessed by those who want to look at these arguments in more detail. They are posetd because the issue was raised during group 2's seminar

SEMINAR 5 SLIDES: ADDITIONAL REFERENCE

The slide showing pros and cons of different financing systems was included without a reference. The reference is ILO (2007) Social Health Protection, Geneva: ILO. The table can be found on page 33. The full document is HERE.

Seminars 4 and 5.

For interest only.

HERE is an example of a foreign aid ministry, in this case the UK's Department for International Development, using the economic analysis we discussed in seminar 4 and the principle of scaling up essential interventions we discussed in seminar 5. It is quite technical but provides a nice illustration of the use of these analyses in minsiterial decision-making.

THIS paper provides a very simply guide for public health professionals on how to respond to the economic crisis. It will be useful for assignments based on a European health system and also for those who have shown an interest in fiscal issues.

Atlas of African Health Statistics 2012.

Just out. Useful for assignments. Available HERE.

PUBLIC MEETING this Thursday, 8 November, to save Lewisham hospital's A&E department. 

We discussed in the last seminar information relevant for public campaigns about A&E closures.

HERE is a campaign in action. 

Feel free to attend. (Lewisham can be reached via the DLR from Shadwell). 

GAVI

This Lancet article just out refers to GAVI and difficulties with data collection, as discussed by seminar group 2 this week. 

Data on revenue collection from mining companies operating in Africa

Seminar group 3 today discussed the issue of tax collection for African health care systems. In 2009, Christian Aid expresssed the widely held concern that although the continent is rich in mineral deposits mining industries are not paying their fair share of taxes. In fact, many mining companies pay very little tax altogether. The report (which can be found HERE) provides some data and examines data sources for this key question. The report is quite long (81 pages). Those interested in this topic might start with chapter 3, which examines the scale of taxes foregone. The report could be useful for your assignment.

An interesting article about Tory links to healthcare companies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/23/david-cameron-privatisation-adviser-health-lobbyist

Just out, profiles of 15 health systems HERE:

Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States