Government

Scottish Government Obesity Strategy February 2010 Overweight and obesity cannot be tackled by just relying on individuals to change their behaviour as the factors that contribute to gaining weight have been interwoven into the very fabric of our lifestyles to such an extent that weight gain is almost inevitable in today’s society. The evidence also suggests that the provision of health information, although important, is not sufficient and that to make the changes necessary we have to reshape our living environment from one that promotes weight gain to one that supports healthy choices.  

The US government last week released a report that the threat of a nuclear device used in an act of terrorism is high in the next couple of years. In this episode we discuss the some concepts of the medical care required to those exposed to radiation as well as blast injuries. I hope this is information that none of you will ever need.  

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings' Clinical, Pre-Clinical and Health table judges world class universities across all of their core missions - teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The ranking of the world's top 50 universities for clinical and health subjects employs 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available, which are trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments.  

Cutting money from April contradicts government promise to put mental and physical healthcare on an equal footing, they say  

Andrew Sparrow’s rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including the government announcing whether it is accepting pay review body recommendations covering health staff and other public sector workers  

Hundreds of thousands of NHS staff get lower-than-expected rise as government rejects pay review body's recommendations  

The Pay Review Body report released today confirms the case for applying the maximum possible uplift to pay for NHS staff.  The Government has ignored this for staff working in England.  Nurses, paramedics, healthcare managers, porters, cleaners, medical records staff and healthcare assistants alike have been sent a clear message by Jeremy Hunt – that he wants to cut further and deeper and they are the ones who will have to pay.  NHS staff in England will only get 1% if they are at the top of their pay band – which means that over two thirds of staff will miss out.   

Despite the BMA’s determined efforts to secure a pay increase for doctors, the Westminster government has again chosen to undermine the value of the medical workforce, by announcing another real terms cut in doctors’ pay in England.    

The true cost of fraud inside the NHS could be more than £5bn a year, more than 20 times the official government figure, a new report has warned.  

Every hospital in England will have a legal duty to own up to mistakes and errors that cause harm to patients under a new “duty of candour” to be introduced by the Government.  

It’s late at night. You’re reading a news article about a section of the world with which you’re hardly familiar, but the story strikes a chord. That seemingly innocent village in South Sudan, bombed ruthlessly by its faceless government, but there at the center of it all is a 14-year-old boy, his two arms severed by the violence.  

Questions are being raised about the government's drive in England to increase dementia diagnosis rates.  

Health warnings are issued by the government as pollution spreading across England is forecast to hit high levels.  

Research suggests eating at least seven portions of fruit and vegetables a day is more effective at preventing disease than the government's current five-a-day recommendation.  

How governments respond to the widening rift between rural and urban America can either help bridge the gap or drive the country down an even more divergent path.  

Kathleen Sebelius, the outgoing US health and human services secretary, asked five organizations to support efforts by a nongovernmental group that was working to enroll US residents in health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, says a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO),1 an investigative agency of the US Congress.  

With chronic diseases placing an ever growing burden on health services, governments are increasingly offering financial incentives to encourage healthier lifestyles. Sarah Strickland looks at the trends and the evidence  

Governments around the world stockpiled oseltamivir for a flu pandemic despite uncertainty about its harms. Deborah Cohen investigates what the regulators knew and whether their response was adequate  

Governments around the world stockpiled oseltamivir for a flu pandemic despite uncertainty about its harms. Deborah Cohen investigates what the regulators knew and whether their response was adequate  

Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with an ever expanding list of diseases, and with this has come almost tonic-like claims for vitamin D supplementation. In observational studies, low vitamin D status has been associated with increased risk of multiple sclerosis, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, breast cancer, autoimmunity, and allergy.1 The UK government has advised that all pregnant women, and children under 5 years, should take 400 IU vitamin D daily; a recent news story, however, reported a survey conducted by a charity which suggested that only 26% of pregnant women and 46% of healthcare professionals are aware of these guidelines.2 The most recent musculoskeletal trend seems to be the attribution of childhood problems such as Blount’s disease and slipped femoral epiphyses to vitamin D deficiency and the incorrect conflation of rickets with low serum calcidiol (25-hydroxyvitamin D3) concentrations.3 So are health professionals causing ill health through their lack of awareness and advocacy of vitamin D supplementation?