Review of the Papers, Monday 19 February

Government

• Most doctors believe that Labour has failed to reform the NHS and that funding by taxation alone will not improve the quality of care. An online poll of more than 3,000 doctors carried out for The Times offers the most striking picture yet of the level of disillusionment within the profession. Most say that the billions of pounds injected into the service since 2002 have not been well spent and that services have not improved. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1403738.ece
• Working for the NHS may once have been a decision that lasted the length of a doctor’s career but many of today’s medics are now considering early retirement or work abroad, The Times / Doctors.net poll reveals. Many said they still felt that the NHS was one of the best health services in the world but their loyalty was being sorely tested by what they viewed as excessive bureaucracy. Only a minority believed the Government’s reform agenda would maintain or improve standards of care. These are not doctors disillusioned with the NHS per se (although a minority are) but with the direction it has taken under Labour. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1403746.ece
• Tony Blair will today call on hospitals to keep operating theatres open into the evenings for non-emergency procedures to ensure that NHS patients on average wait no more than seven to eight weeks. On a tour of a London hospital the prime minister will hail late-night surgery as an example of the sort of reform that will allow the government to meet its waiting time target. Labour pledged in its manifesto for the last election that by the end of 2008 NHS patients would wait a maximum of 18 weeks for surgery after referral from their GP to a consultant. http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2016210,00.html
• Motorists face a potential bill of more than £600 to fit a black box needed to make a full pay-as-you-drive road pricing system work, Whitehall documents have revealed. A blueprint drawn up by the Department for Transport showed it could cost £62 billion to set up and £8.6 billion a year to run. Every motorist could end up paying nearly £300 just to cover the expense of collecting the charge, according to the department's feasibility study. Details of the study emerged as the Prime Minister signalled his intention to press ahead with road pricing in the teeth of fierce opposition. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=WPSXQ22PWQIWVQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/02/19/nroads19.xml
• Car dealers selling environmentally friendly models exempt from London's congestion charge have reported record business as motorists get set for today's western extension. The charge zone nearly doubles in size this morning, taking in some of London's most fashionable streets in Knightsbridge, Kensington, and Chelsea. Ken Livingstone, the mayor, has pressed ahead with despite research showing that 63% of local residents oppose the change. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2016384,00.html
• The British biodiesel industry will this week tell the Treasury it must act urgently to salvage a central element of the government's environmental policy. Biodiesel is expected to account for more than half of the government's drive for greener transport fuels over the next few years. Companies have invested in enough capacity to provide almost half of the UK's requirement of biodiesel from next year. But rising feedstock prices and the fall in the price of crude oil since last year have put the industry under severe pressure.It argues that the 20p-a- litre fuel duty rebate for biofuels, meant to encourage uptake, is now insufficient to bridge the gap in costs between the new fuel and traditional diesel. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c1facdc4-bfbe-11db-9ac2-000b5df10621.html
• Organic food may be no better for the environment than conventional produce and in some cases is contributing more to global warming than intensive agriculture, according to a government report. The first comprehensive study of the environmental impact of food production found there was "insufficient evidence" to say organic produce has fewer ecological side-effects than other farming methods. The 200-page document will reignite the debate surrounding Britain's £1.6bn organic food industry which experienced a 30 per cent growth in sales last year. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2283928.ece 
• The design of the default fund for the government's planned national pensions savings scheme will be "critical", the National Association of Pension Funds is to warn. The warning follows fresh evidence that very few of the millions expected to join the scheme when it launches in 2012 will make an individual choice over how their money is invested, instead opting for the default fund.That is expected to be an index tracking investment, or a so-called "lifestyle" fund in which investments are moved out of the stock market into less risky assets such as cash or bonds as individuals near retirement, thus reducing exposure to big stock market swings. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4aab5054-bfbe-11db-9ac2-000b5df10621.html 
• Chemical spills, leaks and explosions put up to 27,000 people at risk of injury in a single year, according to the most extensive government survey yet of chemical accidents. More than 3,000 people suffered effects including poisoning and burns from contamination during 2005. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2016137,00.html

EU

• Brussels wants the rest of the world to adopt the European Union's regulations, the European Commission will say this week. A Commission policy paper that examines the future of the bloc's single market says European single market rules have inspired global standard-setting in areas such as product safety, the environment, securities and corporate governance."Increasingly the world is looking to Europe and adopts the standards set here," the paper, seen by the Financial Times, says. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0b9d849a-bfbe-11db-9ac2-000b5df10621.html