Present dangers and future threats: some perverse incentives in the NHS reforms.

The NHS reforms have come to mean all things to all men (and women). Identifying a market oriented purchaser-provider split as the conceptual heart of the reforms is still, however, useful. There are important perverse incentives in and around the NHS that are associated with the reforms; furthermore, many reactions to the resulting problems are paradoxical and often counterproductive. Hitherto most criticism of the reforms from the health policy and management community (as opposed to the professions and the public) has been tactical rather than fundamental. There are serious problems for the NHS associated both with the NHS market and with current, often tacit, strategies for the future of the service.     

Movements of radio-tagged Common Buzzards Buteo buteo in their first year

The movements of 96 radio-tagged juvenile Common Buzzards Buteo buteo were studied during 3 years in Dorset, southern England. Contrary to previous studies which implied that Common Buzzards are territorial, we found that 39% foraged within 1 km of the nest during their first winter, presumably within their parents' home range. Most (72%) of those that did not disperse were recorded making brief excursions during August and September, before opting for a "stay-at-home" strategy. There was no significant difference between the sexes in the tendency to make excursions or disperse, but females dispersed further than males. Buzzards which dispersed early tended to settle significantly farther from their nests than did late dispersers. Long-term radio-tracking has shown that 72% of the dispersing birds returned towards their natal area in the following breeding season. Such philopatry may be an important hindrance to avian recolonization following local extinctions.     

A Simple,Flexible Failure Model

A new failure model is introduced in the form of a four-parameter nonlinear differential equation, with failure probability as the dependent variable and failure time as the independent variable. The first parameter characterizes the location, the second the scale, and the other two the shape of the model. The type of the accompanying hazard function is immediately read off the shape parameters. The new model approximates the classical failure models with rather high precision, but also models cases where the failure density is skewed to the left. It can be used to analyze survival data objectively, based on the shape of the failure distribution. The computation of quantiles and moments is easy and fast. Nonlinear regression methods are used to estimate parameter values.