Had better things to do than look at Twitter over Christmas and the New Year? Here’s our summary of some of the things you might have missed.
- New Year, new alliances? @andyburnhampmp reaches out to the @NHSparty with an offer to work together.
- Another year another row about NHS charging. @cpeedell dug out a story from 1999 on the very same issue. Sound familiar?
- Think the row about #NHS allocations has been averted? Think again. Here is an example of how the debate could run and run…
- Interesting piece by @SocialistHealth on whether differences the between Andy Burnham and Alan Milburn are exaggerated. Not the use of Health Secretary Russian Dolls to illustrate!
- @LiamFoxMP wants the NHS spending ringfence lifted, but @drwollastonmp wants it expanded. Read some of the debate here.
- @roz_davies produced an interesting list of patient blogs that help tell the story about what the NHS is actually about.
- A new study shows that #BigTobacco makes $10,000 profit from each tobacco related death.
- Some interesting charts comparing how long patients have to wait for an appointment in different countries.
- An interesting paper was published showing how the early use of palliative care in cancer can reduce complications and the use of health resources in the last few months of a patient’s life.
And from America:
- Growth in US health spending has slowed, but is this a blip or the beginning of a new trend? This paper in the @NEJM explored the factors contributing to below GDP levels of growth in health spending.
- Obamacare is happening now. Here’s a good (and funny) summary of what it actually is and what it might mean.
- This is a revealing infographic on the costliest health conditions in the USA. And here is another good infographic on preventable deaths and the USA’s slow progress in reducing them.
And finally…
- The competition was fierce on our #SaveTheNHS leaderboard. Plenty of people proved their credentials as heath secretary (or their ability to become addicted to computer games), but who gets the sought after prize of the Health Secretary Russian Dolls? All will be revealed on Twitter.
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