Emma Baines

Dr Roy Macgregor isn’t the only GP with severe doubts about the merits of the health bill going through Parliament. According to a survey carried out by the doctors’ newspaper Pulse, more than half of GPs have no confidence in the health secretary, Andrew Lansley. Meanwhile, a poll at GPonline is showing that 65 per cent of the profession think GPs should take industrial action against the proposed reforms. So much for the government’s claims that there is ‘overwhelming enthusiasm’ for their plans among GPs.

The popular view of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is that it’s a mean, penny-pinching government watchdog set up by Labour to denysick peopleaccess tolife-saving drugs. So the news that the government will be stripping NICE of its power to determine which new drugs should be available on the NHS has been broadly welcomed. NICE wasn't expecting the move, though perhaps it should have been. The Daily Mail, predictably enough, is ecstatic, claiming a ‘victory for patients’ and heralding an end to ‘the ordeal of tens of thousands of patients being denied life-extending drugs every year’. Avastin all round! Except that just because NICE won’t be responsible for drug rationing from 2014, that doesn’t mean rationing will go away.