BMJ  2005;330:861 (16 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7496.861

News

NHS is failing to reap benefit of new technologies, MPs say

Susan Mayor

London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The NHS must overcome its preference for short term savings and develop strategies to stop the current underuse of new medical technologies, a parliamentary advisory committee recommended in a report published last week.

The House of Commons Health Committee, an all party committee of MPs that scrutinises Department of Health expenditure and policy, found that the potential benefits of new medical technologies, including telemedicine and computer systems, were not being realised by the NHS. The report noted that the United Kingdom spent only 0.36% of its gross domestic product on medical technology. The European average is 0.55%.

Dr Woodrow Kessler of Holmes, Pennsylvania, uses a video camera to send pictures of his patient's ear to a doctor at another location. Doctors in the United Kingdom have been slow to adopt such technology

Credit: WILLIAM THOMAS CAIN/GETTY

After hearing evidence from a range of specialists in medical technology and from companies . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ