The government was at loggerheads with doctors' and nurses' leaders last night over plans to give NHS patients in England personal budgets to buy physiotherapy, home nursing and other healthcare services. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, introduced a health bill that includes powers to make direct payments to people with long-term medical conditions, such as asthma, diabetes and Parki...

NHS hit squads will swoop on hospitals where unusually high rates of death, infection and botched operations appear to be harming or killing patients. As the first healthcare system in the world to operate such a system, investigators from the Healthcare Commission, the NHS watchdog for England, will monitor hospitals using official data and 'soft intelligence' from complainants and whis...

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...

The Healthcare Commission - the government's NHS watchdog in England - yesterday published its annual report into the performance of NHS Trusts. Despite its predictably positive overtones - "Patients and the public should celebrate these results as they show a...

An excellent Editorial piece here from the Lancet of 15th November. No further comment is necessary. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is one to be proud of: free care for all at the point of delivery. But a proposal last week by the Department of Health to allow NHS patients in England...

Patients are to be allowed to pay privately for treatment with expensive drugs without losing their entitlement to NHS care, health secretary Alan Johnson announced today. But he denied categorically the government was presiding over a dilution of the founding principles of the NHS, which promises healthcare for all, free at the point of delivery. Any patient who wants to pay for drugs the NHS doe...

Ministers are planning to force GPs to improve their performance by posting patients' comments about them on an NHS website, the Guardian can reveal. Ben Bradshaw, the health minister, wants to make it easy for patients in England to rate their family doctor's competence and bedside manner on bulletin boards on the NHS Choices website. Officials have been told to have the appropriate sof...

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.

Some patients will soon be able to choose where they buy their healthcare using money paid to them directly, the government announced today.

A Tory government would never get away with it. A Tory government would not dare do it. The Labour government has now sanctioned the dismantling of the NHS. And yet, their decision will probably be hailed as forward thinking and sensible. They are going to allow patients to pay for an upgrade to Club class health care. The bar on topping up NHS care by paying for drugs not available on the health ...