Events

Venue: Savoy Place, London

The way procurement and commissioning is undertaken in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will soon change under sweeping new reforms being implemented by the government.

How aware are you of these changes?

How will they affect you?

The NHS spends more than £17bn on goods and services every year. To ensure that enough funds are available for direct patient care, the efficient procurement of these goods and services is paramount. To secure value for money, effective management is essential, something that has been challenging in the past with the many individual NHS trusts.

Confirmed speakers at Procurement in the NHS 2010 include: 

This is also an ideal opportunity for delegates to meet and network with fellow professionals from the healthcare sector in the UK

The Nutrition Society Winter meeting 2010 'Functional genomic biomarkers, nutrition and disease susceptibility' will be held jointly with the Molecular Epidemiology Group at The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, UK on 02 December 2010.

Registration

Registration for this meeting is now open and to book a place please visit the Nutrition Society website [link to: http://www.nutritionsociety.org/winterregistration]. Please note that places for the meeting are very limited and prompt registration is recommended.

The registration deadline is 10 November 2010.

Programme

The meeting, titled 'Functional genomic biomarkers, nutrition and disease susceptibility' features speakers from the UK, Europe and the US who will present the latest research in the field.  A special Sheila Bingham memorial lecture will be given by Professor Tim Key. Please visit the Nutrition Society website [link to: http://www.nutritionsociety.org/winterprogramme <https://exchange.lancs.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nutritionsociety.org/winterprogramme> ] for full programme details.



 

Brocher Foundation, Switzerland

Venue: Management Centre Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Venue: Erasmus University Campus, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Venue: Central Hall Westminster

A limited number of complimentary places are now available for this event, If you wish to register a place at The Public Servant Annual Conference, free of charge, the easiest way to do so is to select the marketing registration option via our Online Registration System

As change adds pressure to complex and tightly stretched systems and with the spending review casting its shadow over every move, how do leaders maintain momentum and morale while implementing radical service and system redesign.

The day at Central Hall Westminster will open with a series of keynote speakers on the latest development of policy and action to open up government and services.

Speakers will include:

Professor Colin Talbot, Professor of Public Policy and Management, Manchester University
Lord Adebowale, Chief Executive, Turning Point
Charlie Mayfield, Chairman, The John Lewis Partnership
Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner, ICO
Ben Lucas, Director, 2020 Public Services Trust
Greg Martin, Excecutive Head, Durand Education Trust
Jonathan Baume, General Secretary, FDA
Ed Mayo, Secretary General, Co-operatives UK
James Stewart, Director General, Infrastructure UK
Liz Peace, Cheif Executive, British Property Federation
Stephen Greenhalgh, Leader, Hammersmith and Fulham Council
Nick Pearce, Director, Institute for Public Policy Research

Workshop 4: Causation in Epidemiology

14 December 2010, 10.30–17.30

Registration is not yet open.

There has been a rash of epidemiological literature on the traditionally philosophical topic of the nature of causation. Why is this? Epidemiologists often seek to infer causation, but then so do many other scientists. There are at least three (and probably more) reasons that causation is an issue in epidemiology. First, it is a science relying heavily on observational studies; this means that the difference between cause and coincidence cannot be easily reduced to a difference between repeatability and coincidence. Second, epidemiology deals with general causal claims, such as 'Smoking causes lung cancer'. These claims are hard to interpret. Do they express a relation between two properties, smoking and lung cancer? Or are they (exception-ridden) generalisations over individual cases of smoking causing lung cancer? These questions relate to the interpretation of probability, discussed in the second workshop, since causal generalisations in epidemiology are usually probabilistic. There is a related question here about whether epidemiology deals with laws of nature. Are there epidemiological laws, or are the relevant laws all biological – or even physical? And what is the relation between each of the aforementioned concepts of general causation and ceteris paribus laws? Finally, the identification of causes in many sciences is tied up with the process of explanation. In epidemiology, however, causes may not be explanatory. An epidemiological study might establish that smoking causes lung cancer, to the satisfaction of governments and the general public, without explaining why people get lung cancer. Intuitively, this is because the link between smoking and lung cancer is not illuminated by establishing that smoking causes lung cancer. This links back to the topic of the third workshop, since it is unclear how the identification of causes for the purpose of devising interventions relates to causal explanation (which has traditionally received a great deal more attention from philosophers of science). Moreover, the kind of cause that we focus our attention on may bear both on the chances of a good explanation and of devising a good intervention. For example, identifying readily manipulable socioeconomic causes of illness may offer promising interventions but little understanding; with genetic causes, the reverse may be true. These are, of course, disputable claims, relating to the topic of the first workshop. This final workshop therefore ties together some of themes of the previous three.