Published 24 August 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3436
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3436

News

Care for people with neuromuscular conditions is unacceptable, say MPs and peers

Zosia Kmietowicz

1 London

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

The NHS is failing people with muscular dystrophy and related conditions by providing unacceptably low standards of care, concludes a report from a cross party group of MPs and peers.

The all parliamentary group for muscular dystrophy’s national inquiry into access to specialist care found that gaps in access to specialist, multidisciplinary care are leading to huge disparities in life expectancy across the country. The result is that boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy are living up to 30 years of age in the north east of England but to just 17 or 18 years in other parts of the UK.

In his evidence to the inquiry into services for people with neuromuscular conditions, Michael Hanna, chairman of the British Myology Society, argued that this "postcode lottery" would cause a national scandal if it concerned a rare form of cancer but that neuromuscular conditions such as muscular dystrophy are allowed to . . . [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    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ