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The authors reflect on the effectiveness of independent treatment centers which have been developed by Great Britain's National Health Service. They suggest that there is no definitive evidence which supports the continued funding of the centers. They argue that concerns from patients, lawyers and healthcare professionals about the quality and safety of the centers are being ignored by the government.

Discusses the reasons why private finance is moving primary care into corporate ownership. Reasons for the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) of Great Britain, to integrate primary care and health and social services in health centers; How the aim was compromised by the absence of public capital and the reluctance of the Treasury to buy out practice premises owned by general practitioners; Question about the extent to which planning, population needs and accountability are incorporated into the procurement process.

The article reports that the U.S. Health and Social Care Act 2012 will replace the administrative structure of the NHS in England and its implications on existing routine data systems and the production of routine statistics. As stated, under the Act, unlike primary care trusts (PCTs), commissioning groups will no longer have responsibility for geographical areas and their practices will be able to recruit patients living anywhere in England. It also states that some health services for which PCTs are responsible will be out of the health service entirely or may be provided under the new public health system.

The article reports on an initiative by the Department of Health of Great Britain to develop a strategy to collect comprehensive information that would make it possible to track, at local levels, trends in major risk factors and in patterns of disease. The government is seeking views on such a strategy. The consultation document outlines how such a vision should be realized to provide real-time, high quality public health data to public health and local authorities.

A letter is presented in response to the article "Dismantling the signposts to public health? NHS data under the Health and Social Care Act 2012" by Allyson M. Pollock, Alison Macfarlane and Sylvia Godden in the April 2012 issue; a response by Pollock and colleagues to this letter is also included.

Background This article describes the issues encountered when designing a study to evaluate recruitment of minority ethnic groups into clinical cancer research in order to monitor adherence to the principles for good practice set out in the Department of Health, Research Governance Framework, England. Methods (i) A review of routine data sources to determine whether their usefulness as a source of data on prevalence of cancer in the population by ethnic category. (ii) A local case study at one hospital trust to ascertain whether the ethnicity of cancer trial participants was representative of admitted cancer patients. Results (i) The lack of a comparator population makes it problematic to assess recruitment levels by ethnic group in clinical research. (ii) The odds of being in a trial were 30% lower for a member of a minority ethnic group compared to a white cancer patient after adjusting for disease, age and gender, OR 0.70 (0.53 to 0.94). These results differed for each ethnic group; Asian patients did not appear under-represented while Black and Chinese did so. However, there are important caveats to the findings based on the limited recording of ethnicity. Conclusions The lack of available data on the ethnicity of participants in clinical research and the prevalence of cancer in the population according to ethnicity makes it difficult to design a study to monitor representation of minority ethnic groups. This information is necessary to assess adherence to the Research Governance Framework principle that research evidence reflects the diversity of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Equity, Waiting Times, and NHS Reforms: Retrospective Study," by Z. N. Cooper and colleagues in the September 3, 2009 issue.

Focuses on community health services in Great Britain. Policy and regulation governing community health services; Information on their computer system and data management; Purpose the government for its decision to abandon work on a standardized community dataset.