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The National Health Service was established in the United Kingdom in 1948 as a universal, comprehensive service free at the point of delivery, which is publicly provided, funded, and accountable. Market incrementalism in England has eroded this system over three decades. The recently enacted Health and Care Act will erode it further. This article first explains briefly how legislation and policy initiatives in 1990, 2003, and 2012 furthered development of the market and private provision of health services, and then describes the main structural changes in the new Act and their implications. England is now moving decisively toward a marketized, two-tier, mixed-funding system with several similarities to the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To examine the impact of NHS-funded private provision on NHS provision, access and inequalities.Design: Ecological study using routinely collected NHS inpatient data.Setting: England.Participants: All individuals undergoing an NHS-funded elective hip arthroplasty in England from 2003/2004 to 2012/2013.Main Outcome Measures: Annual crude and standardised rates of hip arthroplasties per 100,000 population performed by NHS and private providers between 2004/2005 and 2012/2013.Results: Age standardised rates of hip arthroplasty increased from 116.4 (95% CI 115.4-117.4) to 148.7 (147.6-149.8) per 100,000 between 2004/2005 and 2012/2013. Provision shifted from NHS providers to private providers from 2007/2008; NHS provision decreased 8.6% and private provision increased 188% between 2007/2008 and 2012/2013. There is evidence of risk selection; private sector hip arthroplasties on NHS patients from the most affluent areas increased 228% from 10.8 (10.2-11.5) to 35.4 (34.3-36.5) per 100,000 compared to an increase of 186% from 8.8 (8.1-9.4) to 25.2 (24.1-26.4) per 100,000 among patients from the least affluent areas between 2007/2008 and 2012/2013. There was no statistically significant (p > 0.05) widening in any measure of inequality (absolute, relative difference and slope and relative slope of index inequality) in hip arthroplasty rates between 2004/2005 and 2012/2013.Conclusion: Private provision substituted for NHS provision and did not add to overall provision favouring patients living in the most affluent area. Continuing the trend towards private provision and reducing NHS provision is likely to result in risk selection and widening inequalities in provision of elective hip arthroplasty in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the argument concerning the potential of the licence conditions imposed by Monitor on National Health Service (NHS) foundation trusts in reducing the hospital services. Topics include the introduction of the NHS foundation trusts under conditions set out in "authorisations" in 2003, the assertion of Monitor regarding the power of arbitration, and the legal duty of commissioners for the arrangement of services.

The article presents the authors' view on the fate of the government agency the National Health Services (NHS). Topics discussed include the authors' opinion on the 2012 Health and Social Care Act and its impact in the government's healthcare services, the similarity of the care organizations created by the U.S. Affordable Care Act of 2010 to the clinical commissioning groups of Great Britain and the authors' call for the creation of a legislative bill to restore the NHS in Great Britain.

Competing Interests: Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and have no relevant interests to declare.

Objectives: To analyse and report on sports-related injuries using enhanced injury data collected by the testbed for the NHS emergency care injury data set and admissions data collected from inpatients., Design: Ecological study design., Setting: Two Oxfordshire NHS England hospitals., Participants: Emergency department attendees and inpatients aged 0-19 years with sports injuries., Main Outcome Measures: Data were analysed from 1 January 2012 to 30 March 2014 by age, gender sport, injury location, injury mechanism and diagnosis including concussion/post-concussion, bone fractures and ligament damage. Admissions data were analysed from 1 January 2012 to 24 January 2015., Results: Children and adolescents aged 0-19 years accounted for almost half (47.4%) of sports injury-related emergency department attendances and almost one-quarter (23.5%) of sports injury-related admissions for all ages. The highest rates of attendance occurred at 14 years for boys (68.22 per 1000 person-years) and 12 years for girls (33.72 per 1000 person-years). For male 0-19-year-olds the three main sports were (in order) football (soccer), rugby union and rugby league and for females, trampoline, netball and horse-riding. The largest gender differences were in netball where injuries were predominantly in females and in wheeled motorsports where injuries were predominantly in males. Almost one-quarter of emergency department sports-related injuries recorded were fractures, the highest percentage to the upper limbs., Conclusions: Public health departments in local authorities and schools should consider target sports injury prevention at children in the first four years of secondary school. For younger age groups, trampolines in the home warrant improved safety. Rugby and horse-riding should also be a focus for interventions.

Introduction: Childhood injury is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide with the most socio-economically deprived children at greatest risk. Current routine NHS hospital data collection in England is inadequate to inform or evaluate prevention strategies. A pilot study of enhanced data collection was conducted to assess the feasibility of collecting accident and emergency data for national injury surveillance., Aims: To evaluate the reliability and feasibility of supplementary data collection using a paper-based questionnaire and to assess the potential relationship between income deprivation and incidence of paediatric injury., Methods: Clinical staff conducted an audit of injuries in all patients under 16 years between June and December 2012 through completion of a questionnaire while taking the medical history. Descriptive statistics were produced for age, sex, time of arrival, activity at time of injury, mechanism and location of injuries. The association between known injury incidence and area level income deprivation (2010 English Index of Multiple Deprivation [IMD] Income Deprivation Domain from home postcode) was assessed using Spearman's rank correlation. Representativeness of the audit was measured using z-test statistics for time of arrival, age, sex and ethnicity., Results: The paper audit captured 414 (6.5%) of the 6358 under-16 injury-related attendances recorded on the NHS Care Record Service Dataset. Comparison of the audit dataset with NHS records showed that the audit was not representative of the larger dataset except for sex of the patient. There was a positive correlation between injury incidence and income deprivation measured using IMD score where data were available (n = 384, p < 0.001). Nearly half of the attendances were due to falls, slips or trips (49.8%) and more than half were due to either leisure (32.9%) or sport (18.1%) activities., Conclusion: There is evidence of area level income inequalities in injury incidence among children attending the Royal London Hospital. The audit failed to capture a high proportion of cases, likely due to the paper-based format used. This study highlights the importance of routinely collecting enhanced injury data in computerized hospital admission systems to provide the necessary evidence base for effective injury prevention. The findings have contributed to plans for implementation., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)