News

In brief

Local government leaders are calling on the government to match fund rises for the NHS with extra money for social services. A joint survey by the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services has revealed that pressures on social services this year are likely to lead to an overspend of more than £200m.

The report is available at www.lga.gov.uk

The government has launched consultation on the way the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) conducts its inquiries in response to concerns from patients’ groups. The aim is to make the way NICE selects topics for appraisal more transparent and more inclusive, according to health minister Lord Philip Hunt. The consultation will last three months.

Health should be central to decisions on food and farming policy, a report from the UK Public Health Association and the Centre for Food Policy at Thames Valley University, has urged. Farming and food should give equal weight to environmental and human health, according to the report, Why Health is the Key for the Future of Farming and Food.

The report is free and available on the UKPHA website www.ukpha.org.uk and the food policy centre website www.foodpolicy.co.uk

Pay and conditions of public sector workers should be improved as part of a drive to raise staff morale, public service leaders have urged prime minister Tony Blair. A group of prominent leaders, including chief executive of the King’s Fund Rabbi Julia Neuberger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing Dr Beverly Malone and chief executive of the Industrial Society Will Hutton, have written to Mr Blair calling on him to ‘champion’ public servants.

Doctors have suggested they give up their traditional gate-keeping role in favour of nurses in a controversial report from the British Medical Association. The discussion document, published last month, proposes nurse practitioners should be a patient’s first point of contact in primary care, while in hospitals nurse specialists would co-ordinate care of different professionals.

Want to know the facts behind the health stories in the headlines? A new service, Hitting the Headlines, has been launched by the National electronic Library for Health and is available on the NeLH website www.nelh.nhs.uk