Comment archive – Page 343
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Comment'The challenge is to get better average outcomes and reduce variation'
Post-Blair Labour health “reforms” overemphasised a centrist, target driven culture that tended to distort how care might best be delivered. It marginalised clinical staff, leaving them often to adopt a stance of disgruntled passivity.
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CommentMedia Watch: All eyes are on Lansley
Health secretary Andrew Lansley is not a politician to wilt in the face of criticism, which probably came in handy last week.
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Comment'Dorrell argues now for quiet pragmatism, for letting change evolve'
Am I just imagining it? Or did Andrew Lansley start to modify his combative message to the NHS, its suspicious staff and customers, even before Stephen Dorrell’s striking intervention in the reform debate courtesy of last week’s HSJ?
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CommentOur lives are in the cancer detectives’ hands
Helping GPs to hone their skill at identifying cancer early will go a long way to improving survival rates
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CommentHealth insurance is a game of poker, against an expert
“NICE is accountable to the public,” Lord Crisp - the former NHS chief executive - advised Parliament last week. “What we don’t need is to import American style private sector rationing where individuals find themselves the victims of decisions made in private by individual insurance companies where nobody is accountable.”
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CommentAndrew Murrison on the military covenant
The British public is discerning. It may doubt the validity of UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan but gives the thumbs up to the means of its prosecution.
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CommentMedia Watch: targets and treatment
The last week and a half proved a good few days for journalists, but a less good few days for NHS managers and their staff.
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Comment'NHS cuts will come off a far fatter bird'
It won’t have changed your life much, but MPs have been squabbling for weeks now over the future size of the NHS budget under the coalition’s plans for the next five years. “Bigger or smaller?” critics demand to know. Yes or no, does it change anything?
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CommentWhat happened to courage?
A client describes the following scenario to me. The 24-year-old son of a close friend has lost his job in the fallout from the sudden collapse of the business in which he was working.
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LeaderHSJ100: Politicians and medics surge to power in the new world order
We live in political times. That much is clear from the first HSJ100, the expanded version of the HSJ50 which, for the past four years, has plotted the most influential people in health.
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LeaderWhat Dorrell says matters, and his message to the NHS is clear
House of Commons health committee chair Stephen Dorrell made an electrifying intervention into the NHS reform debate last Thursday.
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CommentHSJ100: Hakin and Gerada lead the rise of the clinicians
The white paper represents a seismic shift in policy and operational form, perhaps the biggest since the inception of the NHS.
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CommentCan patient choice alone force the changes the service needs?
The advent of the coalition has, of course, brought about a major overhaul of the existing power and influence matrix within the NHS.
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CommentHow to establish your marketability
Having decided to try for a new role or being faced with the need to look for a new job, there is often a temptation to dust off the CV, add relevant new information, then fire it out to as many companies, organisations and agencies as possible.
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LeaderAn American Dream we should believe in
The NHS too often looks to the US for inspiration, encouraged by a shared language and the size of the American healthcare system.
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CommentTreading softly on cancer's dreams
It is good to see old fashioned centralisation is alive and well in sensitive matters.
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LeaderLansley accelerates his plans as Labour’s opposition falters
The government’s reforms are picking up pace.
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CommentLocal NHS pay negotiations: beware raiders of the lost cause
We have too much to lose as patients and taxpayers to repeat the 1990s’ flirtation with local pay negotiations.
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CommentThe national public health service
What will the new national public health service look like?
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CommentThe Mid Staffs inquiry and NHS redundancies
The national media’s week was not surprisingly dominated by the start of the Mid Staffs public inquiry.