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3 Febuary edition of the Telemedicine Reporter International Edition (PDF) for download thanks to US Tele-Medicine. To be emailed when the next is released email their media dept. |
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| The gist is...If you have a serious comment to make anonymously...email it, don't just post it. |
Truly anonymous comments - where the writer is unknown - are not published unless they are unexceptional.
Comments or articles where the authorship is known but are offered for publication anonymously are considered on their merits. (Email Steve or Donna in confidence.) There are some circumstances where it is necessary to be close to a particular situation to be able to throw light on it but to write about it publicly would jeopardise the author's position. In that case, the decision to publish an item anonymously hinges on the question of whether or not it is informed opinion that will add insight to, or might start, a debate on a particular topic.
Unsubstantiated allegations of illegal behaviour or substandard products, for example, would not be posted unless they could be independently verified, in which case we would probably publish them ourselves.
Just because a post, article or comment, etc. is published on Telecare Aware readers cannot and should not infer that the editors agree with the author, anonymous or not.
Steve Hards
Donna Cusano
Editors
steve.hards@telecareaware.com
donna.cusano@telecareaware.com
Telecare Soapbox: Postscript to the UK budget announcement |
| Friday, 30 March 2007 00:00 |
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What was Chancellor Gordon Brown up to when he announced that the VAT rate on equipment to help older and disabled people live independently would reduce to 5%? Steve Hards reflects. Despite calling his commentary 'Budget 2007: VAT - No surprises', accountancy writer Nigel Harris was surprised at the announcement that VAT on items of equipment for older and disabled people will be reduced from 17.5% to 5%. He says "This measure was unexpected and does not seem to have been particularly high on any lobby group’s agenda, from which one might infer that the take up will be fairly limited. All the more surprising since this was the one VAT measure announced specifically in the Budget speech itself." What the commentator was not in a position to realise, of course, is the context for this announcement, which is that the consultation about this measure will fit in around the anticipated announcement of the result of the Transforming Community Equipment Services Project. That project is expected to talk up the ability of social enterprise companies to make this equipment available directly to the public. The budget announcement therefore appears to confirm the Government's intention to shift the rising cost of equipment provision from statutory service providers to users and carers. The deeper implication is that this a tacit admission that it has failed to persuade health and social care services that investing in such relatively low-cost, preventative provision has local economic advantages. Steve Hards |
