RCGP council 23/9/16

Things I said: GP Forward View, again raising concerns that there is a lot of non evidenced policy in there. This seems to be pushing ahead despite a lack of evidence to say whether this is safe, effective, or ends up pushing more resources at people who already had more resources and could potentially widen […]

Continue Reading →

Inside Health 20/9/16

Realistic medicine report  Prudent practice  Choosing wisely  JAMA study MRI in normal people  and here  NNTs for codeine NNTs for gabapentin I didn’t ask to be ICE’d   Measuring medicine RCT from the US  paracetamol sliding scale  

Continue Reading →

Inside Health 13/9/16

NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens ‘obesity is the new smoking’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29253071 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/31/obesity-new-smoking-nhs-england-chief-executive parallels smoking in 70s 1974 half of men smoked now 22% women 41% 1974 now 19% http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/risk/tobacco#heading-Three obesity in 2010s 1993 about 14% men and 17% women obese 2014 – 25% of each https://www.noo.org.uk/NOO_about_obesity/adult_obesity/UK_prevalence_and_trends smoking – difference more than double in highest […]

Continue Reading →

Inside Health 9/8/16. Zika, statins, asthma trial

Zika: http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/internationalissues/zika.aspx Click to access Zika_virus_guidance_for_primary_care.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/zika-virus-epidemiology-and-cases-diagnosed-in-the-uk/zika-virus-epidemiology-and-cases-diagnosed-in-the-uk http://travelhealthpro.org.uk/zika-virus-update-and-advice-for-travellers-including-pregnant-women/ Yellow card scheme Asthma study Press release  press coverage Lancet study http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(16)30179-5/abstract http://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/2062500198/2064583746/gr4.jpg other registered trials 

Continue Reading →

Edinburgh Festival – rants with references

Fringe show starts tonight….and here are the references. If you are coming and I know you from twitter, that means I know you, so please come and say hello. Early day motion to support homeopathy http://skeptical-voter.org/wiki/index.php?title=Jeremy_Hunt 2.  Weekend ‘effects’ “someone is 15% more likely to die if admitted on a Sunday than on a Wednesday […]

Continue Reading →

Inside Health 2/8/16 – statins and the media

Smeeth paper   Jade Goody – cervical cancer -> rise in smear rates – month after her death was 33,000 smear tests than expected http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/1/80.full Kylie Minogue increase in breast screening 20% increase in young women 25-44 having mammon increased by not bx rate https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2005/183/5/impact-news-celebrity-illness-breast-cancer-screening-kylie-minogues-breast http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18515324 MMR – sorry saga http://jech.bmj.com/content/54/6/473.full Cochrane review on The […]

Continue Reading →

Inside Health 25/7/16

ACTIVE trial  Press release from Alzheimers’ Society Brain training found to reduce dementia risk over a 10 year period New research has shown a scientifically tailored computer brain training program can reduce the number of cases of cognitive decline and dementia over a decade by a third. The research was presented today (Sunday 24 July) […]

Continue Reading →

Care data – Inside Health 12/7/16

Caldicott eview of care data UK differences – BMJ ICO anonymisation/pseudoanonymisation Data sharing rules broken    identifiable data http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/it/revealed-independent-experts-overseeing-caredata-have-approved-31-releases-of-identifiable-patient-data-since-april/20005572.fullarticle Pharmacy FU Dean street clinic note the NHS is fined more for an accident, the commercial sector fined less for a deliberate profit making sale of data    

Continue Reading →