DfR MS Reports Updates

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News and Reports

"Healthcare should be a matter for patients and doctors"

Letter to the Sunday Telegraph - February 2010

Dr Christoph Lees, 32 members of Doctors for Reform and Reform’s Director, Andrew Haldenby, wrote a letter to the Sunday Telegraph in response to the British Medical Association’s (BMA) campaign to exclude charities and private-sector companies from the UK’s health-care system. The letter points out that the best health services exclude ideological and political considerations and put the doctor-patient relationship first. Mixed-funding healthcare would also result in promoting choice and allow services to flourish both in the public and private sector. A copy of the letter is available to read here.

"E-health or White Elephant? Doctors' Views on the National Programme for Information Technology"

The DfR commissioned report into the NHS IT Programme entitled - "E-health or White Elephant? Doctors' Views on the National Programme for Information Technology" is now ready for download here

The report written by Professor Wendy Currie (Head of the Information Systems and Management Group at Warwick Business School) is one of the few in-depth analyses about Information Technology in the NHS to include feedback and comments from working clinicians.

DfR and Professor Currie would like to everyone who contributed to the report.

Transatlantic Health Debate

In response to the current UK/US health debate, Doctors for Reform released the following news release on Friday

"Leading doctors say that the NHS needs to change or die"

Doctors for Reform, a group of 1000 medical practitioners, has argued that the NHS needs to change or die. Medical treatment in the US can be of a high standard; however its affordability and coverage of the population leaves much to be desired. The group does not see private insurance with a restrictive safety net arrangement for treatment as being desirable within the UK healthcare system.

If the founding principles of the NHS are to be preserved the following changes need to be adopted and implemented:

· Universal coverage with an insurance element. Our current system provides universal coverage but would benefit from having an insurance element so that no-one would receive sub-standard care.

· Topping up the basic level of care. The NHS should allow patients to spend their own money on treatment provided by either the independent sector or the NHS, where it might make a charge for treatments not normally available.

· Supply competition. Patients should be allowed to exercise real, informed choice about where, how and by whom they are treated.

Dr Christoph Lees, a founder member of Doctors for Reform, said: “Our current healthcare system is not perfect. We still firmly believe in the core values of the NHS, but a tax-funded model with an insurance element – or one that allowed people to top up their care – would be more equitable and ensure everyone had a good basic level of care.”

Further comment by Dr Christoph Lees and Professor Karol Sikora is featured in this Sunday Times article.

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Balanced and evidence based
debate will lead to
sensible NHS reform

Paul Charlson outlines why we need to leave emotion out of the latest UK healthcare debate. Read his article here

Health funding reform: we dare not speak its name
An essay by Dr Christoph Lees
Available to read here

Karol Sikora on the UK versus US health debate
Karol discusses how he became embroiled in the current transatlantic health debate in a commment piece for the Observer. Pdf version of article here

Dr Christoph Lees writes to The Financial Times

In a letter to the FT, Dr Lees suggests we "look back to 1941 for a coherent healthcare strategy"
Read the article here