The next Quinton Ward Committee meeting will be held on Thursday 3rd September at 7pm, at the Forum building, Four Dwellings High School, Highfield Lane, Quinton.
It's an open meeting and as usual we'll be discussing some very important issues, not least how the Building Schools for the Future programme may affect the facilities at Four Dwellings School itself.
...and then three come at once!
No commentary necessary for this one - it speaks for itself. Thanks to Simon Russell for making it.
At the end of each Full Council meeting, all Councillors are provided with a meal, whether or not we choose to eat it. We've asked that a sum equivalent to the cost of the meal (approximately £14 per head, ten times per year) is donated to the 26th Regiment Royal Artillery, a regiment with close ties to the City and which the Council voted this month to grant permission to march through the City.
We hope that by making this gesture we can, in some small way, show our gratitude to the men and women who serve tirelessly to keep us all safe.
In addition, food waste is a hot topic at the moment. Rather than dishing out lectures, we thought it only right to set a practical example.
UPDATE 19/06: Apparently the issues around Lucentis are more complex than the information that came out in yesterday's meeting, but I believe the essential fact remains that it's not available to prevent blindness in England (as appropriate), for whatever reason.
NICE's Economic Model
I asked the presenter about the economic model that NICE uses to frame its decisions. I'd heard that NICE doesn't publish an 'executable' version of its model (i.e. one in which you can change the figures), but it does publish a 'paper-based' version. Our presenter confirmed this, one of the reasons being that they don't want drugs companies and others to fiddle with the model until they get the 'right' result, and then submit their evidence accordingly.
I must say that I don't understand this approach. NICE should come clean, publish the model and stand by its decisions. I was further confused when our presenter admitted that it would be possible for someone to recreate the 'executable' model from the public information, so I really don't know what purpose this policy serves, other than potentially increasing levels of suspicion around how NICE arrives at its decisions.
Who's NICE's Customer?
Aside from the drugs approval role, NICE has a very important role in offering clinical and other guidance to NHS organisations - Primary Care Trusts and so on. I wanted to look at how it does this, so time for an analogy.
The Police IT Organisation was wound up last year because it never delivered what it was supposed to. One of the reasons given in the Home Office report is that there wasn't a customer. The Home Office paid for PITO, but individual police forces were supposed to be the beneficiaries. However, police forces weren't obliged to listen to PITO and in any case they had no incentive to because they weren't paying. It strikes me that an almost identical situation exists in terms of NICE's guidance.
NHS trusts don't pay for NICE's guidance and they don't have to take it. Does this weaken NICE's position? Our presenter thought not, but when I asked him whether he would prefer NICE's guidelines to be binding, his 'gut feel' was that they should be.
We'll see whether NICE fares any better than PITO.
