Virgin Healthcare has acquired a majority shareholding in Assura Medical Limited a provider of primary healthcare services. Assura’s operations include a number of GP-led health centres and polyclinics across the country.
A new BMA report suggests that London’s health services are headed towards a major financial and organisational crisis which could lead to record numbers of beds and hospitals closing.
The UK health care think tank, The King‛s Fund, has published a report considering responses to the forthcoming financial challenges for the NHS. This warns that managers may face a funding gap of up to £40bn in the five-year period from 2011. It describes the NHS as facing a ‛perfect storm‛ of funding cutbacks, rising costs and increasing workload due to an ageing population and increasing patient expectations.
Private hospitals are seeing a slump in the number of self-pay cases. They are though treating increasing numbers of NHS patients. However, this may undermine the value of Private Medical Insurance unless hospitals can differentiate their services between their NHS and private patients.
Two U.S. studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine have found that heart attacks are becoming more common in middle-aged women. However, less women are dying from them.
Waiting times for operations emerge as a key concern for Britons in a new survey about health systems in the UK, US, Germany and India. A larger proportion of UK respondents also felt they have little or no influence over where and how they are treated, compared with any of the other three countries covered in the survey.
New research from the EuroHeart mapping project shows large differences in death rates due to heart disease across 16 European countries. For men under 65, only Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia, Greece and Finland were worse than the UK.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, despite huge increases in NHS funding from 2001 to 2008, productivity fell by 3%. They also indicate that the fall in productivity may be accelerating.
Virgin Healthcare has acquired a majority shareholding in Assura Medical Limited a provider of primary healthcare services. Assura’s operations include a number of GP-led health centres and polyclinics across the country.
A new BMA report suggests that London’s health services are headed towards a major financial and organisational crisis which could lead to record numbers of beds and hospitals closing.