From the Health Service Journal: A comparison of health services in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland shows marked differences in the likelihood of emergency admission to hospital, staying overnight or being operated upon. Healthcare information providers CHKS analysed statistics from the four nations exclusively for HSJ. Differences included the fact that patients having an elective o...

Millions of patients were left in pain in NHS accident and emergency departments last year because staff did not provide prompt medication, the government's health watchdog reveals in a report today. The Healthcare Commission says patients were largely positive about the overall standard of care provided in A&E in England, with 88% rating it excellent or good. But a survey of the experien...

Switching from hospital care to monitoring and treating patients in their homes will help make public health spending more cost-efficient, according to Edwin Kohl, chairman of healthcare lobby group Costeff.

One quarter of patients are unable to see a GP within 48 hours, and in the worst trust over half of patients have to wait more than two working days to see their GP, a national survey by the Healthcare Commission has revealed. Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb said: "Patients are still having to wait for an unacceptable amount of time to see their GPs. "Four years a...

Potential cost-savings from e-health are being jeopardised because computer systems cannot talk to one another, according to experts. Healthcare IT specialists also warn of resistance from healthcare workers and patients amid ongoing concerns over data protection.

So on the very last day of Assembly business out go health trusts and local health boards and in come seven new bodies who'll run the health service in Wales ... just like they did when I lived in a place called South Glamorgan and before terms like service providers and health commissioning had ever been coined. Out go any plans to prevent patients in North Wales to cross the border to receive ne...

The NHS Information Centre for health and social care - Annual survey on patients` written complaints about the services or treatment they got from the NHS.

Switching from hospital care to monitoring and treating patients in their homes will help make public health spending more cost-efficient, according to Edwin Kohl, chairman of healthcare lobby group Costeff.

Finally, at last, the truth has emerged about the scandals of health care in Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust.  A hospital's "appalling" emergency care resulted in patients dying needlessly, the NHS watchdog has said. About 400 more people died at Staffordshire General Hospital between 2005 and 2008 than would be expected, the Healthcare Commission said. It said there were deficiencies at "virtually e...

The question, seen by some as one of the most revealing pointers to underperforming UK hospitals, has been dropped from an annual official survey of the Healthcare Commission