Comment archive – Page 348
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CommentUnderstanding how patients behave could help cut NHS waste
How the new science of social influence can save the NHS money
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Comment'As silly season stories go, Milburn's appointment was at least a genuine fact'
So, our reformist ex-health secretary Alan Milburn is to advise the coalition government on social mobility. The predictable cry of “traitor” goes up from within the Labour ranks.
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LeaderHelp shape the 2010 Hospital Guide
The history of Dr Foster’s Hospital Guide is a microcosm of the last decade’s debate over healthcare quality.
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CommentOvercoming fears about the NHS's future
I am increasingly concerned by the tone of some responses to the government’s NHS policy.
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LeaderWorld class commissioning: this ridiculed plan might just be working
World class commissioning arrived too late and burdened with a name that virtually guaranteed ridicule. But, unfashionable though it may be to say, it is beginning to deliver results.
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Comment'How is the state going to conscript GPs?'
In seeking to diminish the role of the state, the government has established a policy that attacks NHS bosses as the cause of most problems and abolishes state run primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. Instead, it proposes GP led consortia to do commissioning.
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CommentGP governance: handle with care
How will GP consortia be held accountable for their commissioning activities?
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Comment'La la Lansley has abolished the people who monitor us'
‘There is £80bn out there to be carved up between ourselves and the GPs. Well, surely that makes everyone a winner now?’
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CommentSteve Field on public health and milky u-turns
His members have been given the key to NHS commissioning, and now Royal College of GPs chair Steve Field has weighed in on the country’s public health.
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CommentMilton’s would-be milk snatch
As the overblown furore over school milk came and, almost as quickly, went after David Cameron stepped in, I was left feeling a bit sorry for Anne Milton, the coalition’s Conservative public health minister.
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CommentJenny Rogers on insulting the boss
The scene, several decades ago, is a BBC production department meeting and I am a timid recruit, already unnerved by the savage humour of my new colleagues.
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CommentIs this the end of the road for PCTs?
The winding down of PCTs must be handled with kid gloves if disruption to services - and loss of talent - is to be avoided
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LeaderUnder the radar guidance ends hospital closure moratorium
The revised guidance on hospital reconfiguration was slipped out last week at the height of the summer holiday period.
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LeaderFree NHS Choices to meet public need
The internet’s unequalled capacity to inform and communicate with the public should have been comprehensively exploited by the NHS.
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CommentA nervous kind of NHS reorganisation
It’s only a reorganisation, right? Anyone who’s worked in the NHS for a few years has been through reorganisations before.
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CommentCally Bann: the white paper
So the end of term madness has fully descended, with fuel added to the annual pre-vacation fire by the wind of change blowing from the bottom of the white paper.
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CommentMedia Watch: NHS trusts may soon be courting oligarchs
A front page on the financial arrangements of foundation trusts? Well it wasn’t likely to be The Sun.
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CommentMichael White: the working time directive
Oh dear, I see the Royal College of Surgeons is up in arms again over the European working time directive as its 48 hour week rule affects staffing, management and even the safety of our hospitals.
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CommentSheila Williams on positive communication
Recently I observed a team meeting on ideas for service improvements. A pattern emerged. For every idea offered, one particular person criticised it or gave reasons why it wouldn’t work.
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CommentThe new healthcare revolution
Does the white paper outline a great leap forward or a just a step backwards?