UFO Info Week-End

And tomorrow it will be buying the IndependentNicholas Timmins who is in his mid-40s but blue-suited

And tomorrow it will be buying the IndependentNicholas Timmins, who is in his mid-40s, but blue-suited and hirsute, is leaving The Independent to join the Financial Times He hopes he is not lacking in common sense.. But the sting in the tail, according to Ms Wells, was when they were asked to depict the authority as a person, defining in addition the newspaper it would read.The present authority was seen as male, mid-40s, balding and grey-suited, full of qualifications but lacking common sense, who read the Financial Times or the Daily Telegraph.The ideal was female, aged about 35, caring, confident, able, inspirational and energetic – and an Independent reader. In market research to find out local people’s perceptions of the newly formed authority, health professionals -from GPs to line managers – and NHS users were asked to describe and illustrate their existing view of the authority – and explain how they would like it to be.
The view of the existing authority produced images of pound signs, rows of people waiting, and NHS staff who appeared unhappy. When asked to choose photographs illustrating the authority, black and white pictures of barbed wire, muddle, misery and of a rope stretched to breaking point were chosen, Julie Wells, the authority’s director of communications reports in this week’s Health Service Journal.Asked to depict how they would like the authority to be, the staff and focus groups chose warm colours, smiling faces and pictures of health and vitality. What is your picture of the perfect health authority?According to users and employees of Buckinghamshire Health Authority it is one that reads the Independent. Mr Donoghue denied that the video would attract those seeking voyeuristic excitement.Dr Vivian Nathanson, head of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee said: “We have no problem with people making money from educational material but to make money from frightening people and, perhaps, stopping them from seeking treatment that may help them is clearly distasteful,” he said.. The company, previously involved in the video Caught in the Act, featuring footage from closed circuit television cameras, and Executions, showing executions, had gained the patients’ permission to be filmed, he insisted.”What we have done is open up something increasingly used by professionals for training and said, ‘You the public, you the patients and potential patients, and you who fund the NHS through your taxes, can now actually see what happens in hospitals’,” he said.

The cover says, “This video contains scenes you may find disturbing”, and, “over twenty brilliantly performed operations are vividly revealed”.The British Medical Association branded the video “deeply distasteful” and said it feared the film might frighten patients out of taking part in future training videos or even of coming forward for surgery at all.David Donoghue, a spokesman for the video’s makers, IMC Video, defended the 50-minute film, claiming it was “serious” and “educational”. “There is a good chance that provisions of the Copyright Act have been prima facie breached,” a spokesman said.The video has a warning triangle and an “18″ British Board of Film Classification rating. “A number of patients have come into hospital and they have consented to have an operation undertaken upon them,” he said. “As part of that they may also have agreed it could be used in the training of surgeons.What they have not agreed to, and it seems quite outrageous to me, is that this material has been used for a home video.”The council believes that the people who are unwittingly featured in the compilation have a case against the producers.

A hearing is set for Wednesday.Prior to the injunction being granted, Guy Howland, a spokesman for the Patients’ Association, had called for the video’s immediate withdrawal, saying the use of the film for commercial purposes went beyond the original scope of the agreement between patient and film-maker. The Video Standards Council is already investigating complaints made by a patients’ group about the 50-minute film, Everyday Operations, which features clips from surgeons’ training videos, including open heart surgery, and which was due to be released today. The council has been urging stores not to stock the pounds 12.99 video.
After meeting with Department of Health officials, Gerry Malone, a Health minister, obtained the injunction through the Royal Courts of Justice. The Medical Research Council is to review its guidelines for accepting outside money for research after it was fiercely criticised yesterday for taking pounds 147,000 of tobacco industry money to study the potential benefits of nicotine. The cash has been accepted over three years by the MRC’s Neurochemical Pathology Unit in Newcastle-upon-Tyne towards a pounds 200,000 a year project aimed establishing whether nicotine increases or decreases the development of age-related brain damage in conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
The “donation” from British American Tobacco (BAT) was accepted by the unit last year.

The Department of Health last night obtained an interim injunction preventing the sale of a controversial video which shows NHS operations in graphic detail. By contrast many Unionists would prefer Mr Wallace.One candidate who was unexpectedly excluded was Ian Oliver, head of Grampian police, who is regarded as one of Britain’s most intellectual police officers. Dr Oliver, who has protested to Sir Patrick, was apparently left off the shortlist because he has not completed a senior command course.. Mr Taylor, who is 49, has also served in the Thames Valley and Metropolitan police.Most nationalists would tend to favour Mr Flanagan for the post, on the grounds that he is likely to be more open to changes and reforms in the force. Although the force is small it has assumed a pivotal importance since London’s financial district became the IRA’s prime terrorist target in Britain.He has thus worked in close liaison with the RUC and with MI5.