Aside from whether patients welcome the cash payments there are wider issues that need addressing, namely whether the scheme strips cash from the NHS and so weakens the service for others; will it be a subsidy for private care; and who steps in if the money is spent before the year is up?
Throughout Russia’s history its rulers have attempted to curtail the consumption of alcohol and/or tobacco. Gorbachev had little success in the 1980s; will this year's new laws have any more success, asks Mikhail Loginov?
Next week Jeremy Hunt will announce the closure of A&E and maternity services, in the face of a concerted campaign which culminated in today’s 20,000+ march. I don’t think he has any realistic choice but to do this, and here’s why...
Most radiators in urban Russian homes are fed by hot water transported from heating plants miles away. Ageing pipes frequently burst, causing hardship and even fatalities. Could a return to an older form of heating be the answer? Mikhail Loginov reports from one small town in the provinces.
From the dogged reporting and statistics of Drug War Facts, this year has seen a dramatic change in drug policy, though it is still business as usual when it comes to enforcement.
Some of top stories of 2012 that capture the momentum gained in this extraordinary year of change, which promise to present an exit strategy to the disastrous war on drugs.
A recent "drug sweep" in the central Arizona town of Casa Grande shows the hand of private corrections corporations reaching into the classroom, assisting local law enforcement agencies in drug raids at public schools.
Colorado & Washington State recently voted to legalize cannabis. Winston Ross of The Daily Beast takes a practical look at Washington’s new cannabis law.
If lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug addicts actually worked, one might be able to rationalize them. But there is no evidence that they do.
