Published 24 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a953
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a953

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The world is watching the English experiment

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

It may seem parochial for the BMJ to use so much space discussing the NHS—and the English NHS at that. But I make no apologies—firstly, because if doctors are to take the lead in health care, as they must and as they are being encouraged to do, they need to understand the systems that deliver it. Secondly, because the wider world is watching what may come to be known as the English experiment. As evidence of this, the New England Journal of Medicine has published another paper on England’s use of quality indicators and performance payments. As Alison Tonks describes it (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a891), the paper from Martin Roland’s group in Manchester finds that GPs’ professionalism outweighs temptations to game the system. To minimise overtreatment, GPs are allowed to exclude clinically inappropriate patients from target calculations, but rates of such "exception reporting" among English general practices were low. I find . . . [Full text of this article]

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