UFO Info Week-End

Why should keen London climbers have to scorch up the motorway to the Peak District or beyond when the technology exists to graft

Why should keen London climbers have to scorch up the motorway to the Peak District or beyond when the technology exists to graft 400 yards of gritstone edge on to the Chilterns or the North Downs?
The Pavlovian response of conservationists can be imagined, and there are a good many climbers who would balk at the artificiality of such a crag But there is no doubt it would be heavily used. Commissioning groups were keener to see that all patients in the area gained from changes made, not just the patients of an individual practice.”To push for universal fundholding or to seek to abolish it would seem unnecessarily destructive,” the study says, “especially given our poor state of knowledge of the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives.”9 Alternatives to Fundholding, LSE Welfare State Programme, Paper WSP/123. An idea is germinating in the sometimes fevered minds of the climbing fraternity that the Millennium might be marked by providing its rock-starved southern England members with their very own crag. And that change “is more important than the differences between fundholders and non-fundholders”.The research looked at how well family doctor groupings performed in six different health authorities Overall the fundholders achieved greater changes. Those in GP commissioning groups, where the health authority still controls the budget, had greater frustrations – “an agent at one remove doing the purchasing on your behalf was less satisfactory for some GPs than acting directly”.But both achieved real gains for patients and “fundholders and locality groups do different things well”.

In 1990, family doctors did not feel involved in mainstream NHS planning. Since then there has been “a sea change” as fundholding was introduced and as GPs who did not want to join that scheme banded together to form purchasing commissions. “The extent to which GPs of all kinds are now involved in local health planning is quite new,” the study says. But locality purchasing, as GP commissioning is sometimes known, also brings advantages.And as more fundholders band together in multi-funds, or enter total purchasing projects, where they buy all health care, the differences between the two models are becoming “rather nominal” the study found.The study, led by Professor Howard Glennerster, co-director of the LSE’s Welfare State Programme, concludes: “Neither political party should force either fundholding or locality purchasing as a universal solution.”Instead, commissioning should be given the same level of administrative back-up as fundholding enjoys – something health ministers have generally refused to do – while Labour should drop its plans to scrap fundholding.The biggest single change which fundholding has produced is to “move general practice in from the cold”, Professor Glennerster and his colleagues say. A warning to Labour not to scrap GP fundholding and to the Conservatives not to force it on to more family doctors has come from a key piece of research into the controversial scheme.

One of the first studies to compare fundholding with GP commissioning – where family doctors work with health authorities to buy health care – has shown that both have advantages, and the two approaches do different things well.
Fundholding, where the GPs directly control their own budget, appears better at achieving short-term efficiency gains, the work by the London School of Economics shows. He added that churches had to be accountable.The Archbishop also paid tribute to Christopher Gray, the vicar murdered in Liverpool recently.”His story, I hope, will be an inspiration to many to a new commitment to radical Christianity,” said Dr Carey.The Archbishop’s sermon was the highlight of the four-day festival, which is co-organised by Christian Aid.The crowd sang modern hymns in reggae-style with the backing of a rock band, in what was billed as “the funkiest communion that you have ever experienced”.During the festival, which attracted mainly people aged between 18 and 25, crowds have been entertained by rock bands and a variety of religious speakers.. It is tempting to look no further than our own private world, to focus on maintenance rather than mission, to focus on survival rather than sacrifice.”Dr Carey said the Church still had much to learn from the scandal of the “Nine O’Clock services” in Sheffield last year (where rave music was used to attract young people, and the worship took on cult-like attributes). “We know he is at best our option this year, not our answer.”The disagreement seems bound to surface during four days of confabulation that otherwise will be a re-coronation of a sitting President. “While some of us may hold our noses and vote for President Clinton, many of us will refuse to lift a finger or contribute a penny toward his re- election.” she said.