Survival up after funds flow into critical care
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Survival rates of patients in intensive care have jumped in England since the government boosted spending and reformed critical care services, a study showed on Friday.
Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal said spending on intensive care services had risen to 1.0 billion pounds in 2005/6 from 700 million in 1999/2000 when adjusted for inflation, producing “major improvements in care”.
Hospital deaths fell more than 13 percent, and 11 percent fewer patients needed to be transferred between intensive care units each year, the study found.
“... Considerable additional expenditure on critical care combined with an explicit centrally-driven programme of modernisation has resulted in dramatic improvements in outcomes,” said the researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre.
Spending on the National Health Service (NHS) and the quality of the care it provides are always a major issue for British voters, who are due to vote in a general election by June 2010.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour party is way behind the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls and both sides are keen to reassure voters that health spending will not be cut.
The government’s NHS Plan in 2000 included funding more intensive care beds, adopting clinical guidelines and setting up regional networks of hospitals to improve cooperation.
The study compared data for 1998-2000 with 2000-2006—before and after the changes began—looking at nearly 350,000 patient admissions to 96 critical care units across England.
It found the cost effectiveness of critical care increased after 2000—partly because of better patient outcomes and partly because of smaller increases in the average time patients were in intensive care.
“Collectively these changes represent a highly cost-effective use of NHS resources,” the researchers said.
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LONDON (Reuters)
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