BMJ Group Awards

Shortlist announced - voting begins for lifetime achievement award

The shortlists for the first ever BMJ Group Awards are announced today. The 10 awards were set up to recognise various aspects of medical achievement, including contributions to research, education, communication, and leadership. The BMJ Group Awards recognise pioneering individuals and organisations that have made a significant impact on healthcare. The winner of the lifetime achievement award - for the individual who has made a substantial contribution to improving health care - will be chosen by BMJ readers.

• See full shortlist
• Vote for lifetime achievement award

Podcast

A NICE podcast

BMJ editor Fiona Godlee interviews Andrew Dillon, chief executive of the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), to mark NICE's 10th anniversary later this year. Deborah Cohen talks to the authors of a recent Head to Head debate to find out if NICE's threshold range of cost per quality adjusted life year (QALY) should be raised. And Trevor Jackson highlights his favourite recent BMJ articles.

Downloads:

• Full Andrew Dillon interview
• Full Head to Head debate
• Weekly round-up

News

Treatment target of 18 weeks is incompatible with "choice" agenda, says BMA

"Choose and Book", the electronic hospital appointments system that was meant to increase choice for NHS patients does not have the capacity to fulfil its promise, says the BMA. The referral service is intended to give NHS patients a choice of place, date, and time for their first outpatient appointment, but a BMA survey of NHS staff members' experience of Choose and Book in one London primary care trust found a mixed response.

See also:

• Ill equipped hospitals can't cope with casualties from Sri Lankan crisis
• Government strategy on dementia will emphasise early diagnosis
• New NHS pay scheme shows no productivity gains but did not add extra costs
• NICE recommends long term campaign to encourage young people to exercise
• More spending on NHS has led to highest satisfaction rates in 25 years, report says
• GMC recruits members of the public to help shape consultation papers

Comment

Pathologists are people too

Pathologists have an image problem and are often portrayed as "doctors of death" following scandals at hospitals such as Alder Hey in Liverpool. Can the book Matter of life and death do anything to help make society look on them more favourably?

See also:

• Des Spence: Everybody hurts
• Theodore Dalrymple: A book of quiet heroism
• James Owen Drife: Fireworks in Iran
• The Apologie and Treatise of Ambroise Paré

Editorial

The NHS carbon reduction strategy

As a battle plan, the National Health Service carbon reduction strategy is an excellent start. But only time will tell whether the NHS will actually go to war with its emissions and win.

See also:

• A constitution for the NHS
• Acupuncture treatment for pain

Feature

NICE goes global

When the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) first started to flex its muscles in 1999, the drug industry would have loved to export it, preferably somewhere like Mars. Its decisions on NHS drug funding have attracted attention abroad as well as in the UK, but can the international interest be turned into profit?

See also:

• Editor's Choice: NICE at 10
• Wouldn't it be NICE to consider patients' views when rationing health care?
• Head to Head: Should NICE raise its threshold for cost per QALY? Yes
• Head to Head: Should NICE raise its threshold for cost per QALY? No

Research

Use of primary care electronic medical record database in drug efficacy research on cardiovascular outcomes

A new analytical technique (PERR), applied to cardiovascular outcomes in this comparison of database and randomised controlled trial findings, worked well to identify and reduce the effects of confounding. The results suggest that electronic medical record databases can be useful to investigate therapeutic effectiveness.