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Medics form new political party

Picture of Dr Clive Peedell for Your Expert Witness story A new political party has been launched by doctors to fight the changes to the NHS which they see as damaging to the healthcare system. National Health Action is set to challenge the privatisation of the NHS and the fragmentation of care accelerated by the Health and Social Care Act.

The launch was reported by the BMA, which said the new party "...will fight to repeal the act, and campaign to ensure that clinical commissioning groups have the freedom to choose local NHS services."

According to the BMA, the party intends to fight in up to 50 Parliamentary constituencies, including those of the PM, former health secretary Andrew Lansley, current health secretary Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor George Osborne and schools minister David Laws. It will also take part in local elections.

One third of elderly cancers diagnosed in A&E

Kings College Hospital A&E by C Ford for Expert Witness story Nearly one third of cancers in the over 70s are diagnosed following emergency admission to hospital, according to new research by the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) and published on 21 September in the British Journal of Cancer.

The research found that 31% of cancers in that age group – around 38,300 a year in England – are diagnosed through an emergency presentation, compared to 24%, or around 58,400 cases a year, in all age groups. This new study examined the journey of 739,667 cancer patients between 2006 and 2008 in England, working backwards to see how they were diagnosed with cancer and the sequence of events that took them there.

Olympic doping lab to become research centre

Doping facility In what has been described as a "phenomenal" contribution to the London 2012 legacy, the Games' anti-doping facilities, provided by GlaxoSmithKline at its Harlow base, will be developed after the Olympic and Paralympic Games into a world-class resource that could help revolutionise healthcare. The MRC-NIHR Phenome Centre will use the cutting edge facilities developed for London 2012 to help develop better and more targeted treatment for patients. The centre, the first of its kind in the world, will enable researchers to explore the characteristics of disease in order to develop new drugs and treatments for patients.

Surgeons call for legal protection of job title

Expert Witness surgeons story picture of surgeons operating from US armed forces pics The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has called on the Government to legally protect the job title 'surgeon', so only those who have qualified as a medical doctor and undertaken post-graduate surgical training can use the title. The call follows publication of a survey for its patient group, which found that 95% of adults in Great Britain would expect an individual using the job title 'surgeon' to have a medical degree.

The poll, carried out by ICM, reveals the overwhelming level of public trust that surgeons are medically qualified, despite the fact that there are no legal restrictions about who can and can't be called a surgeon.

One in 20 GP prescriptions contains an error

Your Expert Witness pills A major study of GP prescribing has found that, while the vast majority of prescriptions written by family doctors are appropriate and effectively monitored, around one in 20 contain an error.

Researchers looking at a sample of GP practices in England found that where there were errors, most were classed as mild or moderate, but around 1 in every 550 prescription items was judged to contain a serious error. The most common errors were missing information on dosage, prescribing an incorrect dosage, and failing to ensure that patients got necessary monitoring through blood tests.