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Follow on Google News | Datamonitor: UK - criticism mounts over NHS reform but pharmaceutical firms may benefitThe UK coalition government is facing legal action from public services trade union UNISON over plans to shake up the National Health Service in a bid to find efficiency savings.
By: reports-research.com According to media reports, the government has requested that National Health Service (NHS) managers implement efficiency savings 'immediately', bypassing the white paper consultation phase set to end in October 2010. This could be unconstitutional, and has led to UNISON mounting a legal challenge. The proposed shake ups have already faced criticism from other quarters, with academics branding the reforms as a "gamble". Concerns have also been raised over the influence that pharmaceutical companies may have over general practitioners who will become the new key decision-makers. Furthermore, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign has suggested that patients will suffer as a result of general practitioners not fully understanding the complex conditions for which they will now have control over budgets. The government has hit back, citing that consultants will work alongside GP groups as part of the planned changes. However, financial criticisms are less easily waved away, with the British Medical Journal having suggested that the proposals will cost some GBP3 billion but provide no efficiency savings. In contrast, the pharmaceutical industry has been broadly in support of the measures, with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) warmly welcoming the proposals. Particularly well received has been the GBP50m cancer drug fund which may assist patients in accessing drugs which have not received National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) approval, although skepticism remains over how long such a fund could last and whether future fund top-ups will be made available. Of particular benefit to pharmaceutical companies are the proposed changes to the cost watchdog's operating remit. In a statement, the ABPI highlighted the benefits that could result from the NICE's focus shifting to clinical best practice and moving away from narrow cost-effectiveness measures that have prevented drugs such as Avastin (bevacizumab; Related research Datamonitor: http://www.markt- Datamonitor: http://www.markt- Datamonitor: http://www.markt- # # # markt-studie.de, founded in 2002 has emerged as a leading online portal for market surveys and market research in German speaking areas. Four years later the English language portal reports-research.com was introduced due to the extraordinary success of the portal. Again one year later estudio-mercado.es - the Spanish spoken portal - was founded. The objective of the three portals is to competently and efficiently support consultants and decision makers in management, sales and marketing in the search for worldwide market research. Prospective buyers can look into more than 60,000 market surveys from more than 200 international publishers, current market data for more than 6,000 branches worldwide, 10,000 company profiles as well as a free-of-charge research and recommendation service for individual market research. End
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