The Weekend Effect - what’s (un)knowable, and what next?

We do we know about the weekend effect? As Martin McKee puts it in an editorial on thebmj.com, "almost nothing is clear in this tangled tale" In this roundtable, Navjoyt Ladher, Analysis editor for The BMJ is joined by some of the key academics who have published research and commented on the weekend effect to make sense of what we know and don’t know about weekend care in hospitals. http://www.bmj.com/weekend Taking part in the discussion are: Cassie Aldridge, HiSLAC study project manager at the University of Birmingham Rachel Meacock, research fellow in health economics at Manchester University Nick Black, professor of health services research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Paul Aylin, professor of epidemiology and public health at Imperial College London Nick Freemantle, professor of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at University College London Peter Rothwell, professor of neurology at the University of Oxford