Published 12 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4696
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4696

Editor's Choice

Encouraging improvement

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

We have two encouraging reports in this week’s BMJ to ward off economic or seasonal gloom. The first is about adult critical care in England. Nearly ten years after a major modernisation and funding initiative led to a 35% increase in staffed beds, Andrew Hutchings and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.b4353) report substantially better processes and lower mortality. They say the initiative has been highly cost effective.

We’re going to need good critical care as we in the Northern hemisphere enter our flu season. We’re also going to need a good H1N1 vaccine, which brings me to the second encouraging report. In July, the UK’s National Institute for Health Research called for proposals to evaluate new variant H1N1 vaccines in children. Instead of the familiar researchers’ complaint of bureaucratic delay and inefficiency, we have from Andrew Pollard and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.b4652) a story of speed and cooperation. Four weeks after . . . [Full text of this article]

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