Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on choosing the right organisations to send your FOI request to, and how to frame it most effectively.
Welsh Government to publish data on patients’ funding requests (and tips)
WalesOnline reports on confirmation by the Welsh Government that it is to publish data on patients’ requests for funding for drugs, following FOI requests that revealed “large disparities in the number of requests for funding for cancer drugs not approved by the All-Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG) or the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).
“Some health boards refused two-thirds of these funding requests, while others declined just 15%.”
The data is to be published on a health board basis, rather than at a national level. Continue reading
VIDEO: Heather Brooke on investigating health, welfare and crime
As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate Health, Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on choosing the right organisations to send your FOI request to, and how to frame it most effectively.
VIDEO: BIJ’s Emma Slater on future areas to be investigated in health
In the final part of a series of video interviews for Help Me Investigate Health, Emma Slater, from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, talks about the issues she expects to be of most interest in health in the coming years, including NHS reforms and GP consortia.
EU Ombudsman opens up European Medicines Agency
UPDATE (Jan 20 2012): A second decision further reinforces the recommendation.
Brigitte Alfter posts to the Wobbing EU mailing list about the EU Ombudsman’s recommendation that the European Medicines Agency disclose documents on adverse reactions to a particular medicine. Continue reading
Link: the One GP’s Protest blog
If you’re interested in issues related to GPs, it’s worth taking a look at George Farrelly’s One GP’s Protest blog. George talks about his own concerns based on his experiences of being a GP, as well as points he’s spotted elsewhere in the online health community.
These include the pilots on removing boundaries to GP practices (“The ultimate aim (covert) is the de-regulation of English general practice”) and experiences on trying to deliver care to a patient at a distance, with a more detailed exploration of the issue here.
He’s also written about the problems with registration policy – an issue I’ve been exploring myself. In particular, he talks about the 2004 GP Contract, a useful document for anyone exploring issues relating to general practice.
Which makes me think – a post explaining the contract would be particularly useful. Would anyone like to blog about the 2004 Contract?
VIDEO: BIJ’s Emma Slater on investigating private treatment centres
As part of a series of video interviews for Help Me Investigate Health, Emma Slater, from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, talks about how she went about investigating the use of private treatment centres by the NHS and money being wasted on unfulfilled on operations that never took place. You can see one of her stories on the subject here.
Medical device regulation – an explainer
[UPDATE: The Independent adds some detail on the lack of data held the MHRA: “it did not have accurate data for the total number of implants inserted, making it impossible to calculate the true rupture rate.”]
Sarah Boseley provides some background to the PIP breast implants saga with a very informative piece on how implants and other medical devices are regulated.
The top angle is that these devices only require the same certification as toys, but there’s much more below that which is of particular use to anyone wanting to investigate medical devices or piggyback on the PIP story to look for similar problems. Continue reading
CHART: Referral to treatment times across treatment functions Sept 2011
Waiting times across the different treatment functions - visualisation by Carl Plant
Following a post on this site, HMI Health contributor Carl Plant has visualised referral to treatment times for September 2011 on his blog.
There’s a link to an interactive graphic where you “can select each treatment function separately to look at the figures”, and to the raw data.
Rather lovely. Can you add anything?
VIDEO: Emma Slater on investigating GP consortia
As part of a series of video interviews for Help Me Investigate Health, Emma Slater, from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, talks about how she went about investigating GP consortia and the potential for conflict of interest. You can see one of her stories on the subject at http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/06/15/half-on-some-consortia-have-l…