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Sir Donald Irvine asks what further changes have to be made to the culture and regulation of medicine to make it as trustworthy as the public today expects. As President of the General Medical Council between 1995 and 2002, Sir Donald helped shape the changes that followed disasters like the deaths of babies at Bristol and the murders of Dr Harold Shipman. In this frenetic period a new ethos of professionalism emerged, embodying the concept of the autonomous patient and more robust, transparent professional regulation founded on a partnership between the public and doctors. Sir Donald discusses candidly the struggles in the profession and with successive Governments over the key issues. He p...
Set includes revised editions of some issues.
Care pathways are being developed throughout the health service to improve the quality and effectiveness of care. Are they being developed efficiently and making the most of the latest clinical computing systems? This is the first practical guide on how Information Technology and systems methods can support the development implementation and maintenance of "e-Pathways". Case studies throughout highlight team approaches to facilitation clinical knowledge management process analysis and redesign and computerisation - providing insights into how e-Pathways can be used to support high quality patient care. The information is presented in an easy-to-read style and requires no prior knowledge of IT systems. Doctors nurses and managers throughout primary and secondary care as well as healthcare information technology specialists and suppliers will find this to be essential reading. An accompanying CD-ROM includes supplementary information providing useful website links and additional material on specific topic areas.
When Janet Rhys Dent is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, she decides to try to be a "good patient". With any luck, this role will give her the best chance of recovery during the six months of medical testing and treatment that she faces. This book reveals her secret dilemmas and discoveries both inside and outside the hospital. It also records her successes and many failures as she becomes seriously involved in the quest to find out what makes a good patient. Her experiences lead her to reflect on her life, to look further into the roles of patients, to join a support group and to seek information and enlightenment on internet sites and in philosophy and popular self-help methods. ...
This book makes the case for 'ordinary' people to get the health and social care which the state has promised them for over 60 years but which has not been delivered. What is the case for choice? How can choice be made real for the individual? What impact can genuine, individually financially-empowered choice have on effective funding, purchasing, delivery, and outcomes? How can a genuine market grow and thrive? How can the quest for choice include the large numbers of NHS and social care staff on whom success depends? The book urges individual financial empowerment, through a life-long health savings account for all NHS and social services.
The majority of doctors and nurses involved in specialist palliative care reject the legalisation of physician assisted suicide (PAS). This book explores the reasons why the healthcare professionals who have the most experience of caring for dying patients should object to a change in the law. Debate about euthanasia and PAS often arises in response to a well publicised tragic case of unrelieved suffering. Such heart rending stories do not reflect the fact that the majority of people dying have a dignified death. There is a marked disparity between medical intuitions and the philosophers' arguments about euthanasia and PAS. It seems that part of the moral constitution of a doctor is a commitment not to intend the death of a patient and to protect them from harm. The perspective of those who are privileged to care for thousands of dying patients and their families should inform the debate about PAS.This book will enable those who are not working within palliative care to gain an insight into the scope of this speciality and to understand why legalisation of PAS should be resisted to maintain and improve care of dying patients.
Current health policy is required to respond to a constantly changing social and political environment characterised, particularly in Europe, by ageing populations, increased migration, and growing inequalities in health and services. With health systems under increasing strain there is a sense that we need to seek new means of determining health policy. Much political debate focuses on managerial issues such as the levels of health funding and the setting and missing of targets. Meanwhile our moral imperatives, our values and principles, go relatively unexamined. What are these values? Can we agree their validity and salience? How do we manage the paradox of competing goods? Can we find new...
You should do more than read this book. It contains direct, practical advice in relation to each of the key cardiovascular disorders, and guidance on developing your own personal development plan and the practice learning plan. It is therefore a book to 'do', or interact with, rather than just read. Make use of this book and you will start to release the full potential of clinical governance and will improve the care of people at risk of, or with, cardiovascular problems.' Richard Baker, in his Foreword 'This book will prove to be of huge value to the many doctors, nurses and other disciplines who have a collective determination to improve the primary and secondary prevention and treatment o...