To the new health secretary, Andrew Lansley, target is a dirty word. He prefers outcome measures – actual results that show treatments are working.

A brief period in which British family doctors were offered a financial inducement to treat diabetic patients more intensively could be coming to an end.
 

Controversy over the effectiveness of antidepressants such as Prozac, provoked by an article by Irving Kirsch and colleagues in 2008 in PLOS Medicine, shows no sign of declining.

Gordon Brown’s in favour. So is the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, and other parties.

Of all the magnificent sleights of hand attributed to statistical science, few come close to matching the formula by which NHS funds are allocated to primary care trusts (PCTs).

Much anxiety has been caused by the publication over the past decade of hospital mortality ratios.

Back in September, I asked the Independent Safeguarding Authority how it had arrived at the figure of 11.3 million adults who would need to be vetted before they could be allowed regular access to children (their own excluded, naturally).

More than three quarters of US medical students believe that Western medicine would benefit from integrating more complementary and alternative therapies and ideas.

Reservations on today’s report by Nuffield Trust which compares funding and healthcare performance across the UK centre on: Rurality (which not even comparison between Scotland and North East England redresses), Reporting standards, Right measures, Responsiveness, and Repeat attendances.

Here's a story to warm the heart. Altruistic kidney donation has gone up by 50 per cent!