All prescriptions charges in England should be scrapped, doctors argue.

Make all prescriptions free in England, doctors argue
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The British Medical Association is calling for all prescriptions in England to be free and the National Pharmacy Association, and a host of patient charities are also in support.

Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have already abolished charges or are planning to.

A review of medical diagnoses which are exempt from charges is being carried out and chairman Prof Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, is due to report in the summer.

Currently only 11 per cent of people in England pay the £7.10 charge for a doctor's prescription and this will drop further from April 1st as cancer patients receiving treatment will each be exempt from fees for five years.

Gordon Brown has said exemptions will be extended to all people with long-term conditions, to be determined by the review, but doctors say this will leave only a tiny minority paying the fee which is 'nonsensical'.

The NHS earns around £450m a year from prescription charges out of a budget of around £100bn a year and this would be substantially reduced if all 15m people with long-term conditions were removed from charges, the BMA said.

Research has estimated that around 750,000 patients on low income, but who do not qualify for as exempt from charges, fail to have their medicines dispensed because of the cost."

To make all prescriptions free in England would certainly make the system simpler, and would undoubtedly be fairer, especially for people with long-term conditions, so I suppose I should support this idea. What troubles me about it is that it will, inevitably, lead to more people being prescribed drugs and to more people taking them, and it is my firm and sincere belief that prescribed drugs on the whole do far, far, far more harm (mostly unrecognised and certainly unacknowledged) than good.

Doctors vote to make abortions easier to obtain

Doctors 'make abortions easier' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Doctors have voted to make it easier for women to have an abortion in the very early stages of pregnancy.

In a move that infuriated pro-life campaigners, they voted to scrap laws requiring two doctors to sign consent forms.

They said that women should be able to have a termination during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy on the basis of “informed consent”, making abortion as easy to access as any other treatment.

But delegates at the British Medical Association’s conference in Torquay rejected by a narrow majority proposals to allow nurses and midwives to carry out terminations. "


Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

NHS problems have left thousands of doctor training posts unfilled

NHS fiasco leaves 4,000 jobs unfilled - Telegraph

Extract:

"The full extent of the junior doctor recruitment crisis was laid bare yesterday after figures showed that thousands of training posts have not yet been filled.

A leaked document from the Department of Health showed that almost a quarter of specialist training positions for young medics - the equivalent of more than 4,000 jobs - were still empty.

With only five weeks to the Aug 1 deadline for doctors to take up their new jobs, experts warned that patients' lives could be put at risk if posts were not filled. The recruitment fiasco was brought to light by The Daily Telegraph in March after it was inundated with letters and emails from despairing doctors. The Government has repeatedly said that no doctor would be unemployed by the time the entire recruitment process comes to an end in October. But the British Medical Association estimates that 12,000 doctors will not get a post as a result of Labour's botched online recruitment system.

In a passionate appeal to Gordon Brown to "end the misery" of junior doctors, Dr Sam Everington, the BMA's acting chairman, said it was a scandal that many doctors were facing uncertainty about their future medical careers."


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Doctors call for measures to reduce heavy drinking.

Doctors call for ban on drinking in street - Telegraph

Extract:

"A national ban on drinking in the street should be introduced to help defeat the binge-drinking culture, senior doctors will say next week.

Laws to increase the legal age for buying alcohol to 21 - except in pubs and hotels - and increases in tax on alcohol and advertising restrictions will also be proposed.

Delegates at the British Medical Association's annual conference will debate the suggestions on Tuesday.

There are already restrictions on drinking in the street in some parts of the country after councils were given powers in 2001 to designate public areas in which it is an offence to consume alcohol if asked not to do so by a police officer.

The BMA motion calls for total national prohibition.

This follows growing concern about the impact of binge drinking on the nation's health and the financial implications for the NHS and the taxpayer of alcohol-related disease.

A Government report this month to accompany its new alcohol strategy suggested that Britain has eight million problem drinkers. Liver disease is the fastest growing illness and hospital admissions have doubled in the past decade."

Alcohol is not the only, and not the main, cause of liver disease. - Prescribed drugs, frequently prescribed inappropriately, in far too high a dose and for far too long a period, cause massive damage to the liver and other organs of the body. The most harmful tend to be those which cause sodium and water retention - that is steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, most notably amitriptyline, other psychotropic drugs and, to a much smaller extent, many painkillers and other drugs. The most dangerous of these sodium retentive drugs - the steroids, HRT and tricyclic antidepressants - should never be prescribed without a warning to avoid eating salt/sodium while on the medication. This warning is seldom, if ever, given...)o: The effect of the sodium retention is to turn sodium in food (usually encountered as salt) into a very slow poison for the unfortunate victims/patients of the negligent prescribing. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

You can protect your liver by only taking drugs if they are absolutely necessary, taking them at the lowest dose necessary, and taking them for the shortest period of time necessary, and by avoiding salt and salty food. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/sodium_foods.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

The British Medical Association (BMA) recommends the provision of more trained bra-fitters and claims this would reduce requests for breast surgery.

Better bras: the way to cut breast surgery - The Times

More trained bra-fitters sounds a very good idea. I'm sure that many women would find them very helpful and could be made more comfortable in a better fitting bra.


Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Will NHS treatments be rationed?

Doctors admit: NHS treatments must be rationed - The Observer

Extract:

"British doctors will take the historic step of admitting for the first time that many health treatments will be rationed in the future because the NHS cannot cope with spiralling demand from patients.

In a major report that will embarrass the government, the British Medical Association will say fertility treatment, plastic surgery and operations for varicose veins and minor childhood ailments, such as glue ear, are among a long list of procedures in jeopardy."

If the truth were to be told about obesity, the health of the nation would be immeasurably improved and the need for treatments would be greatly lessened! - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html

Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection

All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)

Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: Vulnerable Groups

Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)