Journal of public health medicine
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J Public Health Med · Jun 2001
Public health physicians' knowledge of core skills and current policy: clinical audit by questionnaire.
The aim of this study was to facilitate the assessment of the knowledge of general public health physicians on a range of topics relating to everyday areas of work and core skills, and to encourage learning in the process, by means of an educational clinical audit exercise. ⋯ The general public health physicians who took part in this audit appeared to be mainly competent in their knowledge of core skills and up to date with current health policy issues. However, the audit raises a debate about what 'core' knowledge is required in the post-training period. The place of UK-wide CPD initiatives over national or regional, or local approaches needs consideration, as do potential regional or national variations in CPD. This will receive further impetus because of revalidation and the need to demonstrate valid CPD activities in public health medicine.
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Policies and practice in many sectors affect health. Health impact assessment (HIA) is a way to predict these health impacts, in order to recommend improvements in policies to improve health. There has been debate about appropriate methods for this work. The Scottish Executive funded the Scottish Needs Assessment Programme to conduct two pilot HIAs and from these to develop guidance on HIA. ⋯ Although there is no single 'blueprint' for HIA that will be appropriate for all circumstances, key principles to inform future HIA were defined. HIA should be systematic; involve decision-makers and affected communities; take into account local factors; use evidence and methods appropriate to the impacts identified and the importance and scope of the policy; and make practical recommendations.
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J Public Health Med · Mar 2001
Trends in antibiotic prescribing and associated indications in primary care from 1993 to 1997.
Recent concerns that evidence on the appropriate use of antibiotics is not having an impact on prescribing trends are based on UK prescribing data relating to 1980-1991. The aim of this paper is to determine trends in antibiotic prescribing from 1993 to 1997 and link antibiotic prescriptions to diagnostic categories. ⋯ Overall antibiotic prescribing declined by 16 per cent between 1993 and 1997, primarily for respiratory conditions. These results of the current study are in marked contrast to an earlier review, which found an increase of 46 per cent between 1980 and 1991 in England. The level of antibiotic prescribing for conditions which may not be bacterial in origin is still high and there is scope for further reductions in antibiotic prescribing. This study highlights the need for regular epidemiological data to inform the debate on antibiotic prescribing.
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J Public Health Med · Sep 2000
Variation in general practice medical admission rates for elderly people.
Emergency medical admissions are rising, particularly in the elderly. Variation in admission rates between general practices has received little attention, and requires explanation. ⋯ Admission rates show considerable variation between practices, which is only partly explained by morbidity rates, and consistency over 3 years.
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Ambulance services produce a large quantity of data, which can yield valuable summary statistics. For strategic planning purposes, an economic framework is proposed, and the following four resource allocation questions are answered, using data from the Surrey Ambulance Service: (1) To satisfy government response time targets, how many additional ambulances will be required, ceteris paribus? (2) To minimize average response time (r*) with given resources, how should ambulances be rostered temporally? (3) Which innovations are worth undertaking? (4) How would an increase in demand affect r*? ⋯ Ambulance services will be better able to determine which innovations are worth undertaking. Policy makers will be better placed to determine funding levels to achieve response time targets.