JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN Archives


ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN Archives

ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN Archives


ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN Home

ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN Home

ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN  November 2014

ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN November 2014

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

Re: NHS wastes over £2bn a year on unnecessary or expensive treatments | Society | The Guardian

From:

"Mainwaring-Burton Richard (LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH NHS TRUST)" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Mainwaring-Burton Richard (LEWISHAM AND GREENWICH NHS TRUST)

Date:

Fri, 14 Nov 2014 08:37:51 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (162 lines)

An apt new (?) acronym to add to your list which has not yet found its way into www.medilexicon.com

Victim Of Medical Intervention Technology

with best wishes

Richard

Richard Mainwaring-Burton

Consultant Biochemist
Lewisham & Greenwich Healthcare Trust
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich
work: 020-8836-5724
mob: 07831-739876
________________________________________
From: Clinical biochemistry discussion list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Reynolds Tim (RJF) BHFT [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 November 2014 15:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: NHS wastes over £2bn a year on unnecessary or expensive treatments | Society | The Guardian

Vitamin D testing must make up a reasonable chunk of this.





**************************************************************************************
Prof. Tim Reynolds
Consultant Chemical Pathologist / Clinical Director - Diagnostics / R&D Lead,
Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
work tel: 01283 511511 ext 4035
work fax: 01283 593064
work email: [log in to unmask]
work URL: www.burtonhospitals.nhs.uk
This e-mail, and any files transmitted with it, are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient please destroy this message, delete any copies held on your systems, and notify the sender immediately. You should not retain copy or use this e-mail for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of its content to any other person. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify me on 01283 511511 Ext 4035

[Picture of tree not available] Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail



________________________________
From: Clinical biochemistry discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Freedman Danielle (RC9) Luton & Dunstable Hospital TR
Sent: 13 November 2014 3:30 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fwd: NHS wastes over £2bn a year on unnecessary or expensive treatments | Society | The Guardian

Dear all
In case you did not see the AOMRC document below
There are sections on Laboratory Medicine that you may recognise
Regards
Danielle
Dr Danielle B Freedman
Director
Pathology
Luton and Dunstable Hosp NHS FT

Sent from my iPad



http://www.aomrc.org.uk/dmdocuments/Promoting%20value%20FINAL.pdf





http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/05/nhs-wastes-over-2-bn-on-unnecessary-treatment

NHS wastes over £2bn a year on unnecessary or expensive treatments
[http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/11/5/1415222698690/chemotherapy-bags-011.jpg]

The NHS is wasting about £2bn a year and risking patients’ health by giving them too many x-rays, drugs and treatments they do not need, Britain’s leading medical body warns today.

Patients are too readily tested, diagnosed and treated for certain conditions, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC)<http://www.aomrc.org.uk/> claims today in a report that has prompted a debate on whether people are being exposed to unnecessary interventions and stays in hospital in the UK.

The academy is calling on all doctors and nurses to start questioning the value of every test and treatment they recommend for patients in order to help the NHS withstand the unprecedented financial pressure it is under and improve patient experience.

A year-long study by the academy, the professional body that represents the country’s 250,000 doctors, has found that the health service wastes up to £2.3bn a year on a range of procedures and processes that could be done better, more cheaply or not at all.

Well over £1bn could be saved if doctors took care not to overprescribe drugs and not to overmedicalise patients who may not have conditions they are diagnosed with, it says.

One in five patients who have an x-ray for lumbar spine or knee problems do so unnecessarily, which costs the NHS £221m a year and exposes patients to radiation.

Similarly, the NHS could save £466m a year if doctors were less ready to prescribe cocktails of drugs for older people, as the adverse drug reactions some then experience account for 6% of all hospital admissions and 4% of all hospital bed days.

The Royal Liverpool University hospital saved £11.5m by switching from twice-weekly to twice-daily ward rounds<http://www.rcpjournal.org/content/11/6/524.full> by consultants, because that halved length of stay and cut bed occupancy by 7.6%.

Replicating that in other hospitals could save tens of millions of pounds, the AoMRC says.

It also wants to see patients with mild depression no longer necessarily given antidepressants and patients with terminal cancer to be offered the option of “treatment holidays” – breaks from their chemotherapy – in order to improve their quality of life, though it concedes that such a move may reduce the patient’s survival. Prescribing lower-cost statins could save £85m; while enabling more operations to take place by better management of surgical instruments could yield a £320m benefit, it calculated.

Professor Terence Stephenson, the academy’s chairman, said that some of the medical practices the report highlights are the result of doctors doing everything they can to help a patient and were sometimes prompted by “demanding” patients.

“The public can be very demanding, often fuelled by the internet, and can exacerbate this problem by demanding tests and treatments for which there’s no evidence base, such as antibiotics for sore throats. The relentless demand of the public is for treatment here and now.”

Dr Tim Ballard, a vice-chair of the Royal College of GPs’ council, said some doctors were “overburdening patients” with unnecessary tests as part of healthcare that has become “overmedicalised”.

“There’s a significant amount [of overtesting and overtreatment] that goes on, often because of clinicians’ desire to do absolutely the right thing for the patient. But that can lead to clinicians overburdening patients with too many tests and erring on the side of too many tests.”

For example, many of the blood tests done on diabetics up to seven times a year to assess their health could be done three or four times instead, he added.

Too much healthcare is now overmedicalised, Ballard added. “When you get people, especially frail, elderly people, who have multiple problems, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart failure, you end up putting them on multiple medications. But they can run into problems by having side-effects. Overmedicalising people can lead to patients having a fall or kidney problems.”

There is growing concern in Britain and the United States about overtreatment. The medical journal BMJ’s recent Too Much Medicine campaign<http://www.bmj.com/too-much-medicine> has highlighted how unnecessary care happens when patients are diagnosed and treated for conditions that will never cause them harm, which it says “many” patients are.

It has identified ADHD, thyroid cancer, high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease as among the common conditions where there is a risk of overmedicalisation and overdiagnosis. Screening programmes, expanded definitions of diseases, so that more patients seem to have them, and abnormalities detected when patients are tested for something else are driving overdiagnosis, it says.

Research in 2012 by Dr Don Berwick, an American health expert who last year reviewed patient safety in the NHS for the coalition after the Mid Staffs scandal, found that overtreatment in the US amounted to between $158bn and $226bn in 2011<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/don-berwick-on-cutting-health-care-costs/2012/03/18/gIQAFaPjKS_blog.html>, including through overuse of antibiotics and patients having surgery unnecessarily.

But the British Medical Association, the doctors’ trade union, rejected the academy’s findings.

“Far from being wasteful, the NHS is in fact the most efficient healthcare system in the world,” said Dr Ian Wilson, chairman of the BMA’s representative body.

The Commonwealth Fund, a respected American health thinktank, recently rated the NHS top for both value for money and patient care out of 11 healthcare systems worldwide it studied, he added.

But Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s medical director, said the report’s findings could help the NHS withstand the rising pressures it is facing.

“We know that we need to take steps to make the NHS more sustainable, which is why we gave such a frank account of what that will take when we published the five year forward view<http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/futurenhs/> last month. … We need to be innovative to tackle the huge financial challenges we are facing, but there are also some more everyday changes that we can make to improve efficiency.” he said. “This report neatly embodies some practical ideas for more efficient practice.”

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, said: “Tackling avoidable harm in healthcare has been a major priority following the Mid Staffs inquiry, because we know that safer care leads to better patient outcomes and lower costs.

“We have launched a safety campaign aiming to halve avoidable harm and recently published a report showing the costs of unsafe care may be as high as £2.5bn a year.

“Today’s report builds on this and underlines the potential for savings.”


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Overdiagnosis group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.
To post to this group, send email to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/overdiagnosis-group/39DC320C-302F-40E4-B484-D05B7800D454%40holisticfamilypractice.co.uk<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/overdiagnosis-group/39DC320C-302F-40E4-B484-D05B7800D454%40holisticfamilypractice.co.uk?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
------ACB discussion List Information-------- This is an open discussion list for the academic and clinical community working in clinical biochemistry. Please note, archived messages are public and can be viewed via the internet. Views expressed are those of the individual and they are responsible for all message content. ACB Web Site http://www.acb.org.uk Green Laboratories Work http://www.laboratorymedicine.nhs.uk List Archives http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN.html List Instructions (How to leave etc.) http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ ------ACB discussion List Information-------- This is an open discussion list for the academic and clinical community working in clinical biochemistry. Please note, archived messages are public and can be viewed via the internet. Views expressed are those of the individual and they are responsible for all message content. ACB Web Site http://www.acb.org.uk Green Laboratories Work http://www.laboratorymedicine.nhs.uk List Archives http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN.html List Instructions (How to leave etc.) http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/

********************************************************************************************************************

This message may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient please inform the
sender that you have received the message in error before deleting it.
Please do not disclose, copy or distribute information in this e-mail or take any action in reliance on its contents:
to do so is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.

Thank you for your co-operation.

NHSmail is the secure email and directory service available for all NHS staff in England and Scotland
NHSmail is approved for exchanging patient data and other sensitive information with NHSmail and GSi recipients
NHSmail provides an email address for your career in the NHS and can be accessed anywhere

********************************************************************************************************************

------ACB discussion List Information--------
This is an open discussion list for the academic and clinical community working in clinical biochemistry.
Please note, archived messages are public and can be viewed via the internet. Views expressed are those of the individual and they are responsible for all message content.
ACB Web Site
http://www.acb.org.uk
Green Laboratories Work
http://www.laboratorymedicine.nhs.uk
List Archives
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN.html
List Instructions (How to leave etc.)
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager