Dr Louise Tomkow is a Geriatric Registrar in the Northwest deanery and a PhD researcher exploring migration and health at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, The University of Manchester. Dr Rebecca Farrington is a General Practitioner working with asylum seekers and refugees and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at The University of Manchester. In their blog they highlight how: […]
Can performance pay in primary care reduce mortality?
Government policy assumed that incentives for general practice through performance-related-pay would improve mortality rates and other outcomes. Its scheme for doing this appears not to have worked as intended, explains Evangelos Kontopantelis. Primary care has enormous potential for improving population health outcomes – including mortality from common chronic conditions – through early intervention in the […]
Care.data project tarnished by liberties and assumptions
The potential for Care.data to improve the health of the nation is hard to argue with, writes Jonathan Hammond. But he argues that a lack of patient control, security concerns and a lamentable communications strategy have tarnished the laudable aims of the whole scheme. Let’s start with some facts about Care.data. It is a programme […]
Reality check-up: Care.data is good for our health
Amid the furore over the delayed Care.data scheme, the reality is that the storage of pseudoanonymised patient data is already common practice, writes Dr David Springate. He argues that a national primary care database will bring big benefits – and says the risk of individuals’ data being de-anonymised by big pharma companies or criminals is remote. […]