The world’s first Health Tourism show was held this weekend at London’s Kensington Olympia. It promised that those keen to combine their heart operation with ‘a dream holiday abroad’ can go along and choose from clinics from over 20 countries, from Malaysia to Portugal and India.

WHAT’S ON AT THE SHOW
The 2008 Health Tourism Show offered showcase clinics that offer everything from heart surgery to breast enlargement and dental work.

Good morning. After a very below-par performance at the NHS Alliance conference in Bournemouth, Health Secretary Alan Johnson is back closer to his normal good form in an interview in today's Telegraph.

Asked whether he has been invited onto billionaires' yachts, the MP for Hull West and Hessle jokes that no, the limit of his exposure to the high life on the ocean waves has been invitations abroad fishing trawers.

The chief executive of Astra Zeneca, David Brennan was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s The Bottom Line this week. The questions he was asked and the answers he gave drew a clear picture of the position the pharmaceutical industry is in today. Breakthroughs from the 1990s have been exhausted, with licenses coming to an end, and despite increased spending on R&D, fewer products are coming to the market, driving a cash-rich industry to buy up biotech firms and sources of new products.

A beautiful, crisp and clear good morning to you. Two quick pieces of note today: an excellent piece in The Independent reports on Norwich Union's investigating fraud in claims from clinicians.

One consultant gastroenerologist's private work saw £85,000 of fraudulent claims. Another particularly optimistic gynaecologist claimed for work done on pars of a patient's anatomy that had already been surgically excised.

Good day to you. I was cut off mid-flow on day two of NHS Alliance conference coverage by various technical issues, but never fear: coverage will appear.

The theme of the BMJ this week is, ‘where are we in the rationing debate?’ and features contributions from US academics and policy makers, English economists and Norwegian doctors. The real theme is that it is critical to involve the public in rationing decisions and the central question, can it be done?

LESSONS FROM OREGON

It is 20 years since the Oregon Health Plan first attempted to involve citizens in setting priorities. Vidhya Alakeson, a policy adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services in the US, looks back at the plan in this week's BMJ.

The big news today is that the Government plans to come out spending as it employs the economic thinking of John Maynard Keynes to counter the contracting tendencies of the banking crisis. Today’s FT says ‘the chancellor is to call on departments to bring forward billions of pounds of capital expenditure to reinvigorate the economy ahead of an expected recession’. The NHS is a potential beneficiary, as the construction sector could be given the task of building new primary care facilities.

DARLING TO ANNOUNCE NEW MONEY FOR POLYCLINICS?

Three interesting bits of context for the second day of the Alliance conference:

A report that NICE is to use other forms of evidence in its assessments of cost-effectiveness than the randomised control trial

The Association of British Insurers eyes an attractive new market if top-ups are sanctioned by the Richards review, as expected

Whether or not they are commensurate with increased levels of funding, there have been improvements in the NHS in recent years. But one area in which the NHS has gone backwards is in engaging patients.

There are pockets of excellence, but being responsive to patients’ complaints, for example, has become less of a real priority across the service over the last ten years. In response to these continued failings, new ways are emerging for patients to express their views on services

WILL NEW WAYS EMERGE FOR PATIENTS TO FEEDBACK ON SERVICES?

In Bournemouth for the NHS Alliance conference, hoping and expecting it will live up to its reputation for lively and outspoken debate. So this blog will update throughout the day.

We wake to the interesting policy context of the Annual Health Check.

2007-8 Annual Health Check – improving but mixed picture