A & E - Accident and Emergency. Where you rush off to or are rushed off to after after car accident/call the emergency services or just feel bad, out-of- hours etc etc.
ACUTE HOSPITALS TRUST
BMA - the British Medical Association. It is sometimes called the "trade union" of UK doctors. Many UK doctors consider it as as being totally pathetic in representing the interests of UK doctors (see Remedy UK below).
DoH - Department of Health. In the UK we don't always call a "Ministry" a Ministry, Thus we have a Ministry of Defense but a Home Office administrating internal affairs and a Department of Health covering health services both pubic and private. And although the head of the DoH has a positition in the Prime Minister's cabinet, he is not known as a Minister, but as a Secretary of State.
FOUNDATION TRUST
GMC - the regulatory body that decides whether you are fit to be a Doctor or not. If a Doctor commits a misdemeanour, it can also place limitations on what that Doctor is allowed to do or, in extreme cases strike off him/her from the central register of Doctors.
GP - General Practioner. Your family doctor.
MMC – Modernising Medical Careers. Both this and the next entry are a reform plan for postgraduate doctor training introduced from 2005 onwards. MTAS was, an online application process was introduced in 2007. The whole reform process and its implementation have come under heavy criticism. I will refer you to the Wikipedia entries on the subject (here and here) as it is a complex issue.
MTAS – Medical Training Application Scheme. See above.
NHS CHOICES - lets us choose where we want to receive treatment anywhere in England. Most patients would choose their local hospital so family and friend can visit them.
NHS DIRECT/ NHS 24 – the former in England and Wales, the latter in Scotland. When the GP contract was renegotiated in 2004, GPs were no longer obliged to provide Out-of-Hours Services. The DoH believed the the NHS could pick up the slack through a new service called NHS 24 whereby a non-medically member of staff evaluates over the phone whether you need emergency care or not ... or suggests you visit your GP in the morning.
NICE - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. It evaluates drugs and treatments. It does not evaluate their clinical effectiveness (that is the reponsibility of a European medical authority) but on their cost-effectiveness. Trusts are not legally obliged to follow NICE guidelines but most often do until legally challenged in the judicial system
QOF – Quality and Outcomes Framework. When the government introduced the new GP contract in 2004, it set performance targets under the Quality and Outcomes Framework whereby 120+ critera applied and for each one achieved, the GP Practice is financally rewarded by the PCT. The truth has been that the OOF targets have been so easy to achieve - thus the GP Practices have been raking the money in, leaading to enor,ous media and political criticism of GPs but not of the government that drew up the QOF and forced the contract on the GPs.
OOH - Out-of-Hours service. When the government renogiated and enforced the contract between GP practices and the NHS in 2004, it decided it could provide "emercency" care more cost-effectively through NHS Direct/NHS24, A & E and and Ambulance Services than through GP call-outs. But now the government is turning around and wants the GPs to provide OOH again as A & E, NHS 24 and the ambulance trusts cannot cope
PCT - Primary Care Trusts. Self-evident really. The administrative units of the NHS that commisson the GP Practices etc to provide non-hospital based healthcare to the community
REFORM UK - an association of junior doctors (i.e. not yet consultants and "so-to-speak" still in post-graduate training), which amongst other things, has led the campaign protesting MMC/MTAS. It is highly critical of the current government's NHS reforms and has also been critical of the BMA's responses to government reforms.
RMCH - the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital - where our daughter, Kezia, is being treated for T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia - and which is fuckin' marvellous!
SHA - Strategic Health Authority. This is the next level up in the NHS bureaucracy from the Trusts whether an Ambulance Trust, a PCT, an acute hospital trust, a mental health trust etc etc. Thus England has a North-West Stragetic Health Authoritiy covering every trust from Cheshire up to the Scottish border.
A & E - Accident and Emergency. Where you rush off to or are rushed off to after after car accident/call the emergency services or just feel bad, out-of- hours etc etc.
ACUTE HOSPITALS TRUST
BMA - the British Medical Association. It is sometimes called the "trade union" of UK doctors. Many UK doctors consider it as as being totally pathetic in representing the interests of UK doctors (see Remedy UK below).
DoH - Department of Health. In the UK we don't always call a "Ministry" a Ministry, Thus we have a Ministry of Defense but a Home Office administrating internal affairs and a Department of Health covering health services both pubic and private. And although the head of the DoH has a positition in the Prime Minister's cabinet, he is not known as a Minister, but as a Secretary of State.
FOUNDATION TRUST
GMC - the regulatory body that decides whether you are fit to be a Doctor or not. If a Doctor commits a misdemeanour, it can also place limitations on what that Doctor is allowed to do or, in extreme cases strike off him/her from the central register of Doctors.
GP - General Practioner. Your family doctor.
MMC – Modernising Medical Careers. Both this and the next entry are a reform plan for postgraduate doctor training introduced from 2005 onwards. MTAS was, an online application process was introduced in 2007. The whole reform process and its implementation have come under heavy criticism. I will refer you to the Wikipedia entries on the subject (here and here) as it is a complex issue.
MTAS – Medical Training Application Scheme. See above.
NHS CHOICES - lets us choose where we want to receive treatment anywhere in England. Most patients would choose their local hospital so family and friend can visit them.
NHS DIRECT/ NHS 24 – the former in England and Wales, the latter in Scotland. When the GP contract was renegotiated in 2004, GPs were no longer obliged to provide Out-of-Hours Services. The DoH believed the the NHS could pick up the slack through a new service called NHS 24 whereby a non-medically member of staff evaluates over the phone whether you need emergency care or not ... or suggests you visit your GP in the morning.
NICE - the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. It evaluates drugs and treatments. It does not evaluate their clinical effectiveness (that is the reponsibility of a European medical authority) but on their cost-effectiveness. Trusts are not legally obliged to follow NICE guidelines but most often do until legally challenged in the judicial system
QOF – Quality and Outcomes Framework. When the government introduced the new GP contract in 2004, it set performance targets under the Quality and Outcomes Framework whereby 120+ critera applied and for each one achieved, the GP Practice is financally rewarded by the PCT. The truth has been that the OOF targets have been so easy to achieve - thus the GP Practices have been raking the money in, leaading to enor,ous media and political criticism of GPs but not of the government that drew up the QOF and forced the contract on the GPs.
OOH - Out-of-Hours service. When the government renogiated and enforced the contract between GP practices and the NHS in 2004, it decided it could provide "emercency" care more cost-effectively through NHS Direct/NHS24, A & E and and Ambulance Services than through GP call-outs. But now the government is turning around and wants the GPs to provide OOH again as A & E, NHS 24 and the ambulance trusts cannot cope
PCT - Primary Care Trusts. Self-evident really. The administrative units of the NHS that commisson the GP Practices etc to provide non-hospital based healthcare to the community
REFORM UK - an association of junior doctors (i.e. not yet consultants and "so-to-speak" still in post-graduate training), which amongst other things, has led the campaign protesting MMC/MTAS. It is highly critical of the current government's NHS reforms and has also been critical of the BMA's responses to government reforms.
RMCH - the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital - where our daughter, Kezia, is being treated for T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia - and which is fuckin' marvellous!
SHA - Strategic Health Authority. This is the next level up in the NHS bureaucracy from the Trusts whether an Ambulance Trust, a PCT, an acute hospital trust, a mental health trust etc etc. Thus England has a North-West Stragetic Health Authoritiy covering every trust from Cheshire up to the Scottish border.