Nurses for Reform Blog

Following the success of papers I have written for organisations such as The Heritage Foundation, I have recently been asked to write a new paper for the Hoover Institution.

The Hoover Institution is one of the United States most prestigious academic think tanks and closely affiliated to Stanford University.  The institution greatly influences public policy development globally  with its ongoing research agenda and I am very honoured to be asked to write for them.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence known as NICE has yet again let down patients who desperately need medicines that will improve both quality and length of life.  This time it is women with the bone disease osteoporosis that have fallen foul of this Government agency’s dubious decision making process.

It is now becoming apparent to  British people, as it will to Americans as Comparative Effectiveness starts to withhold treatment, that NICE eventually turns NASTY – Not Available So Treat Yourself!

This is yet one more warning to Americans who think that the money set aside for Comparative Effectiveness in President Obama’s stimulus package is money well spent.

The Nation Institute for Health and Clinical Effectiveness in the UK (NICE) has again denied  women with breast cancer potentially life saving treatment.  I have said it before and I will say it again, Governments are putting prices on our lives and if the treatments that we need are considered to be too expensive then we are expendable.

Yet more evidence is coming to light that the NHS is not a service that is there to care for its customers – yes the NHS does have customers they are called tax payers!

A report in the daily mail today shows that NICE is not only rationing medicines for NHS patients by not approving them, it is stopping patients having from medicines that improve quality of life by not even assessing them for three years.

So much for the promise at the inception of the NHS that all medicines and care would be given from ‘cradle to grave’.  As far as I can see the NHS and other government agencies such as NICE seem now to be there for the sole purpose of making sure that very little is available and that the journey to the grave is very uncomfortable and much quicker than necessary.

Please do click on the link to the Daily Mail article and spend a little extra time reading the comments from people who have suffered at the hands of the NHS.  It makes for very uncomfortable reading and really makes you question how any civilised, developed country can continue with this system of healthcare.