25 March 2009

NHS

Further Directions to Primary Care Trusts and NHS trusts in England, concerning arrangements for the funding of Technology Appraisal Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) 2009 (18th March 2009)
NICE guidance - febuxostat for the management of hyperuricaemia in patients with gout.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published technology appraisal guidance relating to the use of febuxostat in the management of hyperuricaemia in patients with gout on 17th December. NICE's guidance recommends febuxostat for patients who are unable to take or are intolerant to the standard treatment, allopurinol. Since NICE published the final guidance, the manufacturer has informed NICE that it is temporarily unable to make the drug available. On the basis of advice from NICE, Ministers have therefore agreed to waive the direction requiring NHS organisations to make funding available for NICE recommended treatments within three months of final guidance for this appraisal. The funding direction will be reinstated once the drug is available.
Further Directions

The Government's response to the Health Select Committee report: NHS Next Stage Review (12th March 2009)
Response to the House of Commons Health Select Committee's report on the NHS Next Stage Review. It deals mainly with primary care trust commissioning, primary care provision, the quality agenda and the NHS Constitution.
Response

Directions to primary care trusts and NHS trusts concerning decisions about drugs and other treatments 2009 (12th March 2009)
These Directions clarify primary care trusts' responsibilities regarding local decision making about the funding of medicines and other treatments.
Directions

Database State (March 2009)
In recent years, the Government has built or extended many central databases that hold information on every aspect of our lives, from health and education to welfare, law–enforcement and tax. This ‘Transformational Government’ programme was supposed to make public services better or cheaper, but it has been repeatedly challenged by controversies over effectiveness, privacy, legality and cost.

The report assesses 46 databases across major government departments and finds that a quarter of the public sector databases reviewed are "illegal" and should be scrapped or redesigned.

Full Report
Executive Summary

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