Much about women

It's not often that a book reviewer declines to judge a book on the grounds that he or she hasn't been able to do a randomised controlled trial of its impact. But that's more or less what Christopher Cates says in his review of the NHS Direct Healthcare Guide (p 1086). The book is a self help guide for patients, and Cates's point is that it, and the NHS Direct helpline service behind it, is a new healthcare technology and needs evaluating as such. Otherwise, Cates says, arguments about whether NHS Direct is expensive …