Franchising. Where's the beef?

Franchising is most appropriate to services which can be simply defined. Introducing it to the NHS will raise issues about accountability. Those taking on franchises may feel they need more freedom than is currently available.

NHS activity. Short measure.

Despite a large increase in NHS funding, the rate of activity has slowed and may be decreasing. Elective activity has fallen at times when more money is going in. Growth in elective activity has tended to be in planned admissions, which have no direct impact on waiting lists.

Health spending. Extra time.

The government is committed to raise spending on healthcare in the UK up to the European average by 2006. There is debate about the exact target figure, but agreement that the key consideration is how the extra money will be spent. If the UK is to achieve the EU average, it will probably have to increase private as well as public spending.

Health system goals: life, death and ... football.

Objectives: Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) have developed sophisticated ways of defining and aggregating performance to produce overall, single-number indices. These are used to illustrate some of the problems of measuring, comparing and improving health system performance.

Methods: Possible associations between FIFA football rankings for international 'A' sides for 176 countries and rankings on the WHO overall health system performance index were explored using econometric techniques.

Bionomics and polymorphism in Callosobruchus subinnotatus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae).

Callosobruchus subinnotatus (Pic) is the major insect pest of stored bambara groundnuts, Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdcourt, in sub-Saharan West Africa, but little is currently known about its biology or how it may be controlled. A series of laboratory studies was performed to investigate the bionomics of and differences between two apparently different morphs of adult of each sex of this species, here termed 'active' and 'normal'.

Management costs. Cut and run.

Government claims that the NHS will have saved 1 bn Pounds on management costs by the end of this financial year are exaggerated. Published figures on savings since 1997-98 vary considerably. The question of what level of management costs the NHS should be expected to bear to run efficiently needs to be addressed.