By Nigel Praities
Our roundup of health news headlines on Tuesday 25 January.
GP commissioning will ‘penalise the poor' according to GPC chair Dr Laurence Buckman, who is quoted in the Guardian today giving the Department of Health a bloody nose on its plans for the NHS.
‘This is the creation of internal medical tourism,' he says in the newspaper, as richer healthier patients will be able to flit from GP to GP in search of better treatments. A Department of Health spokesperson – rather sniffily – plays down Dr Buckman's fears – saying they are ‘unfounded'
Meanwhile, the Telegraph front page is warning hospitals paid for under the Private Finance Initiative will bring '60 years of pain' to taxpayers.
Official figures show British taxpayers are committed to paying a staggering £229 billion under PFI, while the buildings themselves are worth only £56bn – now Daily Digest is not very good at maths, but that sounds like a bad investment to me…
The Express – in an understated fashion – uncovers the ‘scandal of 50,000 dementia victims torn from their families'. A report from the Alzheimer's Society reveals thousands of families are receiving so little help from council carers, that their loved ones are being forced to put them into a home.
Finally, we have a call from the Daily Mail for screening for familial hypercholesterolaemia. The newspaper is calling for more lipid clinics to be set up to find the estimated 100,000 patients with the ‘silent killer' disease.
Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know, and we'll update the digest throughout the day...
Daily Digest
