News

In brief

Prices quoted by hospitals in the West Midlands for a range of surgical procedures continue to show large and unexplained variations, according to the West Midlands Health Service Monitoring Unit. The unit has found an average 307% variation between the highest and lowest prices being offered to GP fundholders by hospitals.

Market analysts are predicting that the economic recession will slow — though not reverse — the growth in private medical insurance. By the end of 1990 there were 3.2 million policies, covering 6.6 million people — 11.7% of the population.

In contrast to the claims of last year’s environment white paper This common inheritance, a new report from the National Rivers Authority finds that water quality in nearly 4,000 miles of the nation’s rivers and canals has deteriorated since 1985. The report blames reduced expenditure on sewage treatment and a relaxing of pollution control standards just prior to water privatisation.

A Mori poll of staff at King’s College Hospital in south London has shown that 57% of respondents expected services for local people to worsen if the hospital opts out. Eleven percent expected services to improve.

The New Zealand government has begun moves towards a radical restructuring of the country’s health service. In a plan which has much in common with the British NHS reforms, it proposes the separation of purchasers from providers of health care, with the creation of four regional boards which will purchase both primary and secondary care for their populations.

But the changes will also introduce ‘user pays’ — i.e. charging — policies for health care. Only those with an income of less than NZ$30,000 (£10,000) a year will continue to get free hospital care.

A report from the National Audit Office has revealed that millions of pounds allocated for the prevention or treatment of HIV and AIDs has not been spent as intended. Nearly £30m of the £121m budget in 1989 was either returned to the Treasury or diverted to cope with short term financial crises in the NHS.

Directors of Public Health, doctors who have a key role in the new NHS in monitoring local health status and defining health needs, have given their views of the reforms in a recent survey. Sixty seven percent felt the reforms would better enable the NHS to meet the needs of the population, but sixty eight percent said they had been given inadequate resources to assess those needs.