Comment archive – Page 350
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CommentViews from the picket line
James Clayton, a reporter on the HSJ and Nursing Times news desk, spent yesterday talking to nurses and other health workers on the picket lines in London.
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CommentLength of stay threatens savings in the South
Southern Health, the mental health and community services provider for Hampshire, is reporting fairly robust financial figures – but its struggle to cut lengths of stay in the acute sector will be a challenge to the wider health economy.
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CommentLondon practices readying for first GP outcomes scorecard
Next week sees the unveiling of the capital’s GP performance scorecard, after much to-ing and fro-ing over the data between NHS London and the GPs.
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CommentCould a public cycle network cut down inner city obesity?
This year’s Faculty of Public Health award for innovation went to an idea for cycle networks that mirror public transport routes. With obesity already costing the NHS £4.2bn annually, this radical idea could be a valuable long-term investment. Geraint Lewis explains.
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CommentSally Gainsbury: shifting the goalposts on NHS spending
One of the more intriguing lines in last week’s NHS operating framework is about how primary care trust recurrent allocations for 2012-13 will be reviewed in the light of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s inflation forecast.
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LeaderAn unflinching framework in the face of relentless pressure
Today’s autumn statement painted a gloomy picture of the economy in 2012. By the time the Chancellor rose, NHS leaders had already begun to come to terms with an operating framework that sent a similarly grim message.
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Comment'This is the kind of disruptive innovation the NHS needs'
The US integrated healthcare system Kaiser Permanente is an example of ‘innovative disruption’ in all its joined-up glory. The King’s Fund chief executive Chris Ham highlights some of the benefits a similar system could give the NHS.
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CommentDoes the NHS really believe information technology can improve healthcare?
I doubt that anybody within airlines, financial services, or manufacturing goes to meetings to debate whether information technology can improve what they do. It already has, and continues to. Why, then, have we in healthcare grown very sceptical about information technology, asks Richard Smith.
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CommentFrom Tokyo to Torbay, integrating services will prove to be the future
Healthcare services in Torbay, England and in Tokyo, Japan both provide valuable insight into how the health service in the UK might look in the future. In getting ready, there are some stark lessons to learn, writes Mark Britnell.
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CommentMedia Watch: nursing numbers adding up to a 'crisis'
The Royal College of Nursing’s claim that 56,000 NHS posts have been lost or marked “at risk” during the past year featured in most of the Sunday papers.
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CommentMichael White: ministers' fears of a CQC tick box regime
Hurt feelings are easy to detect in the system as the winter nights draw in. Officials at the Care Quality Commission sound hurt at what they feel is unfair media treatment of their efforts to ensure the super-regulator is fit for purpose.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: increased demand is the answer, not the question
In 2009 the UK spent 9.8 per cent of its GDP on healthcare. The equivalent figure for 2008 was 8.8 per cent. Such a year on year increase shows theimpact of continuing investment in the NHS even as the recession took hold.
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CommentA new era for performance management in the North
Last month’s clustering of strategic health authorities ushers in a new era of performance management in the North of England.
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CommentReconfiguration attention turns to acute services in the South East
Just as the dust was settling on the reconfiguration of community services in the South East Coast region, manoeuvring in the acute sector looks set to throw things up in the air once again.
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LeaderMake an ‘impossible job’ easier by following a NICE example
“I don’t mind people thinking I’m incompetent, although I don’t want them to,” Care Quality Commission chief executive Cynthia Bower told HSJ this week.
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LeaderLess haste would have led to less waste
HSJ’s revelation that primary care trusts’ initial calculations of public health spending were about 10 per cent wide of the mark does little to inspire confidence in reform of the area.
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Comment'We have not found an area where improvement has not been possible'
Transforming services is a massive undertaking for any trust, but securing the engagement, encouragement and valuable input from patients and staff is arguably the most important step if patient care is to be improved. Peter Homa outlines what has happened at his trust.
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Comment'It's time for a one year maximum wait'
Problems with waiting times are far from insurmountable - they just require the will to change, argue Rob Findlay and Anthony McKeever.
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CommentMedia Watch: for Lansley, the wait is over
The big story on Monday was the expected announcement by Andrew Lansley of a ban on setting minimum waiting times for certain treatments.
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CommentSally Gainsbury: just how much does the NHS cost?
How much does the NHS cost? It is a surprisingly philosophical question as the answer depends on whether or not you believe foundation and NHS trusts exist.