In this week’s BMJ we report a study attributing improvements in blood pressure monitoring and control in patients in English general practices to the quality and outcomes framework (QOF; doi:10.1136/bmj.a2030). Intriguingly, the improvements were accompanied “by the near disappearance of the achievement gap between least and most deprived areas.” For editorialist Helen Lester, “This offers the tantalising prospect that the quality and outcomes framework is a truly equitable public health intervention”—and there aren’t a lot of these (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2095).

QOF has many detractors, and their criticisms are well summarised in the new report, Checking-Up On Doctors (www.civitas.org.uk). Perhaps the most damning is that doctors turn their attention to condition whose treatments bring financial rewards, while ignoring those without dowries.

Our general practitioner columnist Des Spence is …