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Volume 5, Number 3 |
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| Balancing medicine and politics |
Jeremy Nightingale, Editor |
We have recently witnessed a clash between the roles of evidence-based medicine and politics. Professor David Nutt was called upon to resign as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) because he questioned the separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs and he questioned the status of cannabis as a Class B illegal drug. Advice given by the ACMD has not always been followed over recent years, with cannabis being upgraded in 2009 from a Class C to a Class B drug, and the suggested reclassification of Ecstasy from Class A to B not being implemented. |
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| Examining the practicalities of patient self-management of warfarin |
Peter Osborne MBChB F2 Doctor; Gemma Winzor MBChB F2 Doctor; Peter Rose FRCP FRCPath Consultant Haematologist, South Warwickshire Hospital, Warwick |
Warfarinisation is the most frequently used method of anticoagulation. Approximately 1–2% of GP patients are anticoagulated, mostly due to atrial fibrillation, but also due to deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolus or prosthetic heart valves. The effective and safe usage of warfarin for anticoagulation depends on careful initial patient selection in combination with robust systems of ongoing monitoring. |
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| Hepatitis C, its treatment in the home and the role of the specialist team |
Amandip Singh Sahota BMedSci BMBS DTM&H MRCP(UK) ST3 in Infectious Diseases/General Internal Medicine; Julie Laurenti RGN Clinical Nurse Specialist in Viral Hepatitis; Martin Wiselka MD PhD FRCP Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Infectious Diseases, Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester Royal Infirmary |
Chronic hepatitis C virus is a global health challenge with around 170 million infected people worldwide. In the UK, the majority of infected people have acquired hepatitis C by sharing blood-contaminated needles or through receiving contaminated blood products before the advent of virological testing. Hepatitis C is often asymptomatic for many years and many of those infected are unaware of this, putting themselves and others at risk. |
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| Home healthcare: progress to date and the potential for future development |
Allan Karr BPharm MRPharmS DipM MBA Pharmacy Business Services Manager, University College London Hospital, Chair, National Homecare Medicine Committee |
The medicines home healthcare market has seen expansion, both in terms of numbers of patients being treated and the providers of the service, over the last three to five years. As the key objective of any medicines home healthcare service is to support patients with chronic and acute illnesses in the community, it is easy to understand why there has been this continual expansion of the market. Indeed, there are clearly many strategic and operational benefits of the service for all the key stakeholders. |
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