BMJ : British medical journal
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The lead negotiators for the management and consultant sides in an NHS trust in northern England responded to debate in their trust about consultant contracts by offering to research the attitudes of their peers towards a variety of contract options. The options tested included the current contract; models already examined in the trust and elsewhere, such as time sensitive and mild performance related contracts; and some more radical and speculative possibilities, including consultants franchising their services to the trust. ⋯ On the other hand, neither consultants nor managers favoured a strict performance related contract or a fee for service contract. There was a strong similarity of opinion between the two groups on the relative salary values of the options, though the consultants consistently priced these higher than the managers.
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To quantify the short term risk of postoperative mortality in ways which take account of deaths after discharge and the background risks of death in patients who come to operation. ⋯ Temporal profiles of death rates in the year after operation show which operations have early peaks in mortality and which do not. Emergency and elective operations have very different profiles and should be analysed separately. For elective operations for conditions which pose no immediate threat to life the ratio of early to later fatality rates provides a measure of increase in mortality after operation while allowing for the background risk of death in the patient groups.