Download or read book HC 583 Cancer Drugs Fund written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Survival rates for cancer patients in England have generally been worse than those in other high-income countries in Europe, mainly because patients in England tend to be diagnosed later and have poorer access to treatment. The government set up the Cancer Drugs Fund in 2010 to improve access to cancer drugs that would not otherwise be routinely available on the NHS. In the last five years about 80,000 people received drugs through the Fund. However, the Department of Health and NHS England do not have the data needed to assess the impact of the Fund on patient outcomes, such as extending patients' lives, or to demonstrate whether this is a good use of taxpayers' money. NHS England overspent the Fund's �480 million budget for the two years 2013-14 and 2014-15 by �167 million. The cost of the Fund grew from �175 million in 2012-13 to �416 million in 2014-15, an increase of 138% in two years, but NHS England did not start to take action to control the cost until November 2014. There is agreement that the Fund is not sustainable in its current form and NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) are currently consulting on proposals to reform the Fund from April 2016. We expect NHS England, in making changes, to take account of our recommendations and apply the clear lessons from the last five years to ensure that the new Fund is managed better in the future.
Download or read book HC 788 Corporate Tax Settlements written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2016 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A six year investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has resulted in Google paying a further £130 million to settle its corporation tax liabilities over the last 10 years. This vindicates the previous Committee's concerns in 2012 and 2013 that Google did not appear to be paying the full tax it owed in the UK. However, in the absence of full transparency over the details of this settlement and how it was reached we cannot judge whether it is fair to taxpayers. The sum paid by Google seems disproportionately small when compared with the size of Google's business in the UK, reinforcing our concerns that the rules governing where corporation tax is paid by multinational companies do not produce a fair outcome. Google's stated desire for greater tax simplicity and transparency is at odds with the complex operational structure it has created which appears to be directed at minimising its tax liabilities. Google admits that this structure will not change as a result of this settlement.
Download or read book HC 643 e Borders and Successor Programmes written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2016 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On current projections the Home Office's e-Borders programme and its successors will cost over a billion pounds, be delivered 8 years late and not provide the benefits expected for transport carriers and passengers. A major reason for this delay was the termination by the Department in 2010 of its e-Borders contract with Raytheon. This had required Raytheon to deliver its own solution to meet the Department's objectives to a fixed price and timescale which turned out to be unrealistic as government had detailed and evolving requirements, and wanted high assurance that the proposed solution would work. The Department was emphatic that our borders are secure. However, the Department needs to accept that its assertion that it checks 100% of passports is both imprecise and unrealistic due to the complexity of our border. It is now five years since the e-Borders contract was cancelled yet the capabilities delivered so far still fall short of what was originally envisaged. Since 2010 the Major Projects Authority has issued seven warnings about these programmes. The Department's complacency about progress to date increases our concerns about whether the programme will be completed by 2019 as the Department now promises, and whether tangible benefits for border security, transport carriers and passengers will result.
Download or read book HC 600 Reform of the Rail Franchising Programme written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2016 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last time we discussed rail franchising was in 2012, in the wake of the collapsed competition for the InterCity West Coast franchise. We are encouraged that, since then, the Department for Transport has strengthened its capability to let franchises, but there are still gaps in its ability to then manage the contracts effectively. The Department's increased focus on the passenger experience is also welcome, but it is unclear when passengers themselves will actually see the benefits. Furthermore, the Department has not yet developed the partnerships with operators that are required to support innovation, improve efficiency and improve services for passengers. Successful rail franchising depends on strong interest from the market and effective competition but there are barriers to entry to the UK market and the possibility that current participants in the market may drop out. Any reduction to the current level of competition is a major risk to securing value for money for the taxpayer. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Department is to manage the complex interdependencies between passenger rail franchises, the infrastructure that train services run on and the introduction of new fleets of trains to the network. Uncertainty about infrastructure work has resulted in delays to franchise competitions and the Department will have to rely on potentially expensive changes to franchises during the life of contracts. The Department's role is to provide a strategic lead for the complex rail system but it has not yet shown that it has embraced this role. It needs to provide a coherent strategic vision and stronger leadership to ensure that the investment decisions it makes now do not result in increased costs in the long term.
Download or read book HC 502 Services to People with Neurological Conditions Progress Review written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2016 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 4 million people in England have a neurological condition. Services for people with these conditions are not consistently good enough, and there remains wide variation across the country in access, outcomes and patient experience. As well as affecting patients, poor care has implications for the NHS; for example, it costs �70 million to deal with emergency admissions of epilepsy patients and many of these admissions are likely to result from shortcomings in care. Neurological services remain poorly integrated with a lack of joint commissioning of health and social care. Over 40% of people with a neurological condition do not think that local services work well together, and only 12% of people have a written care plan to help coordinate their care. There has been some progress in implementing the recommendations that the previous Committee made in 2012, including the appointment of a national clinical director for adult neurology and some improvements in data. However, these changes have not yet led to demonstrable improvements in services and outcomes for patients. It is clear that neurological conditions are not a priority for the Department of Health and NHS England, and we are concerned that the progress that has been made may not be sustained. We therefore intend to review the position again later in this Parliament.
Download or read book Families Caring for an Aging America written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.
Download or read book Cancer Care for the Whole Patient written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-03-19 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cancer care today often provides state-of-the-science biomedical treatment, but fails to address the psychological and social (psychosocial) problems associated with the illness. This failure can compromise the effectiveness of health care and thereby adversely affect the health of cancer patients. Psychological and social problems created or exacerbated by cancer-including depression and other emotional problems; lack of information or skills needed to manage the illness; lack of transportation or other resources; and disruptions in work, school, and family life-cause additional suffering, weaken adherence to prescribed treatments, and threaten patients' return to health. Today, it is not possible to deliver high-quality cancer care without using existing approaches, tools, and resources to address patients' psychosocial health needs. All patients with cancer and their families should expect and receive cancer care that ensures the provision of appropriate psychosocial health services. Cancer Care for the Whole Patient recommends actions that oncology providers, health policy makers, educators, health insurers, health planners, researchers and research sponsors, and consumer advocates should undertake to ensure that this standard is met.
Download or read book Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2006-10-13 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clinical practice related to sleep problems and sleep disorders has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, but scientific research is not keeping pace. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome are three examples of very common disorders for which we have little biological information. This new book cuts across a variety of medical disciplines such as neurology, pulmonology, pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, psychology, otolaryngology, and nursing, as well as other medical practices with an interest in the management of sleep pathology. This area of research is not limited to very young and old patientsâ€"sleep disorders reach across all ages and ethnicities. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation presents a structured analysis that explores the following: Improving awareness among the general public and health care professionals. Increasing investment in interdisciplinary somnology and sleep medicine research training and mentoring activities. Validating and developing new and existing technologies for diagnosis and treatment. This book will be of interest to those looking to learn more about the enormous public health burden of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation and the strikingly limited capacity of the health care enterprise to identify and treat the majority of individuals suffering from sleep problems.
Download or read book Evaluation of Biomarkers and Surrogate Endpoints in Chronic Disease written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-06-25 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people naturally assume that the claims made for foods and nutritional supplements have the same degree of scientific grounding as those for medication, but that is not always the case. The IOM recommends that the FDA adopt a consistent scientific framework for biomarker evaluation in order to achieve a rigorous and transparent process.
Download or read book Unequal Treatment written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-02-06 with total page 781 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.
Download or read book Life Over Cancer written by Keith Block and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Keith Block is at the global vanguard of innovative cancer care. As medical director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Evanston, Illinois, he has treated thousands of patients who have lived long, full lives beyond their original prognoses. Now he has distilled almost thirty years of experience into the first book that gives patients a systematic, research-based plan for developing the physical and emotional vitality they need to meet the demands of treatment and recovery. Based on a profound understanding of how body and mind can work together to defeat disease, this groundbreaking book offers: • Innovative approaches to conventional treatments, such as “chronotherapy”–chemotherapy timed to patients’ unique circadian rhythms for enhanced effectiveness and reduced toxicity • Dietary choices that make the biochemical environment hostile to cancer growth and recurrence, and strengthen the immune system’s ability to attack remaining cancer cells • Precise supplement protocols to tame treatment side effects, relieve disease-related symptoms, and modify processes like inflammation and glycemia that can fuel cancer if left untreated • A new paradigm for exercise and stress reduction that restores your strength, reduces anxiety and depression, and supports the body’s own ability to heal • A complete program for remission maintenance–a proactive plan to make sure the cancer never returns Also included are “quick-start” maps to help you find the information you need right now and many case histories that will support and inspire you. Encouraging, compassionate, and authoritative, Life over Cancer is the guide patients everywhere have been waiting for.
Download or read book The Health Benefits of Smoking Cessation written by United States. Public Health Service. Office of the Surgeon General and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease written by United States. Public Health Service. Office of the Surgeon General and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.
Download or read book Genetics of Colorectal Cancer written by John D. Potter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-12-08 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genetic susceptibility refers to how variations in a person’s genes increase or decrease his or her susceptibility to environmental factors, such as chemicals, radiation and lifestyle (diet and smoking). This volume will explore the latest findings in the area of genetic susceptibility to gastrointestinal cancers, focusing on molecular epidemiology, DNA repair, and gene-environment interactions to identify factors that affect the incidence of GI cancers. Topics will include germline susceptibility, including Mendelian patterns of inheritance and gene-environment interactions that lead to cancer etiology.
Download or read book Dose Response Analysis Using R written by Christian Ritz and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-07-19 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowadays the term dose-response is used in many different contexts and many different scientific disciplines including agriculture, biochemistry, chemistry, environmental sciences, genetics, pharmacology, plant sciences, toxicology, and zoology. In the 1940 and 1950s, dose-response analysis was intimately linked to evaluation of toxicity in terms of binary responses, such as immobility and mortality, with a limited number of doses of a toxic compound being compared to a control group (dose 0). Later, dose-response analysis has been extended to other types of data and to more complex experimental designs. Moreover, estimation of model parameters has undergone a dramatic change, from struggling with cumbersome manual operations and transformations with pen and paper to rapid calculations on any laptop. Advances in statistical software have fueled this development. Key Features: Provides a practical and comprehensive overview of dose-response analysis. Includes numerous real data examples to illustrate the methodology. R code is integrated into the text to give guidance on applying the methods. Written with minimal mathematics to be suitable for practitioners. Includes code and datasets on the book’s GitHub: https://github.com/DoseResponse. This book focuses on estimation and interpretation of entirely parametric nonlinear dose-response models using the powerful statistical environment R. Specifically, this book introduces dose-response analysis of continuous, binomial, count, multinomial, and event-time dose-response data. The statistical models used are partly special cases, partly extensions of nonlinear regression models, generalized linear and nonlinear regression models, and nonlinear mixed-effects models (for hierarchical dose-response data). Both simple and complex dose-response experiments will be analyzed.
Download or read book Advances in Patient Safety written by Kerm Henriksen and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: v. 1. Research findings -- v. 2. Concepts and methodology -- v. 3. Implementation issues -- v. 4. Programs, tools and products.
Download or read book Ensuring Patient Access to Affordable Cancer Drugs written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-12-23 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, patients' out-of-pocket costs for cancer care have been rising rapidly. These costs include health insurance deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments for covered services, as well as services that are not covered by insurance. Many cancer patients are especially vulnerable financially because their illness and/or treatment impedes their ability to work, with some patients losing employment altogether. Even with insurance, cancer patients often experience financial hardships, such as going into debt, depleting all assets to pay for cancer treatment, and personal bankruptcy. Although many elements contribute to the cost of cancer care, one important component is the cost of new cancer drugs, which has been escalating rapidly in recent years. To explore the issue of cancer drug costs and patient access to affordable, appropriate drug therapies, the Institute of Medicine's National Cancer Policy Forum convened a workshop on ensuring patient access to affordable cancer drugs in June 2014. Affordability was considered from both individual and societal perspectives. The workshop featured discussion panels as well as invited presentations from clinicians, researchers, representatives from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and patient advocates. Ensuring Patient Access to Affordable Cancer Drugs summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.
