Comment archive – Page 372
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CommentThe right way to form GP consortia
GP commissioning consortia will not be created by guidance notes from the Department of Health. Nor will they be formed by primary care trusts and strategic health authorities suggesting the necessary population size for efficient commissioning.
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Comment'All a bit anodyne these days, what with partnership this and partnership that'
Lansley the Leveller should be saying his prayers, according to the joshing banter and bonhomie around our Joint Consultative Committee table.
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CommentMedia Watch: the Conservative Party conference
Unsurprisingly the health coverage this week was largely concerned with the blue half of the government ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.
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Comment'Lansley needs to make the intellectual case for PCT upheaval'
Who caught my attention at the Tory conference this year? Not Andrew Lansley, I think. He had his £164m cancer screening announcement pinched by David Cameron (a PM’s prerogative) and also made a rather lacklustre speech of his own from the platform.
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CommentTeam survival in troubled times
In the NHS’s rush to do more with less there is an inevitable temptation to merge teams, or broaden the remit of existing teams. If clarity of aims - the core requirement for effective team working - is sacrificed, inefficiencies result.
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LeaderThe NHS has too many hospitals - something’s got to give
Bristol, Alder Hey, Mid Staffordshire; some hospital trusts are forever synonymous with failures which shone a light on problems found throughout the NHS. Could South London Healthcare Trust and Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals Foundation Trust be about to join them?
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LeaderLansley acknowledges lack of readiness for GP commissioning
GPs need to significantly overhaul their skill sets before they embrace commissioning.
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Comment'Patient safety demands adequate resources, effectively applied'
In the face of ever more squeezed budgets and the pressures of reorganisation, chief executives and finance directors ignore patient safety at their peril.
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Comment'The pre-election death tax row continues to reverberate'
No, I didn’t really expect Ed Miliband to snatch the Labour leadership from his big brother, now you come to mention it. I did expect Andy Burnham to end up where he did in the contest, fourth out of five after a respectable campaign which has raised his political profile ...
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CommentEarly cancer diagnosis could save lives
There is great potential for GPs to improve detection of cancers
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CommentManaging NHS restructuring and redundancies
Managing restructuring and redundancies is a daunting task, especially for managers who have never had to deal with these issues first hand. There are a number of challenges.
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Comment'Time to consider the benefits and flaws of the single minded pursuit of targets'
Medicine, it has been suggested, is as much an art as a science.
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LeaderThe hurricane of protest over NHS pay can be calmed by honest debate
How much, in this age of austerity, should NHS staff or contractors be paid? Using the number of comments on HSJ’s website as a guide, no subject is of greater interest or importance.
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CommentPublic health needs a long vigil
Public health must be protected from short term raids on its funding by acute services
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Comment'I am now chairing the Andrew Lansley Action Squad'
‘As you can imagine it’s a busy time with new directives coming thick and slow. The team members have become adept at scratching their heads, then armpits and finally groins as they try to work out how to operationalise the sophisticated actions that arise from the no top-down reorganisation reorganisation ...
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CommentWhistleblowers and freezing fat
One story united the media in its health coverage at the start of this week. A whistleblower who raised concerns about a clinic involved in the Baby Peter case is to sue the NHS for £100,000.
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Comment'A centre-left party in a centre-right coalition needs to tread carefully'
It has been a fascinating week in Liverpool watching Liberal Democrat ministers, MPs and party activists circling each other at their first party conference since entering the Cameron-led coalition.
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CommentNHS training must start with values
The news that the number of places on the National Management Training Scheme is to be reduced is not surprising given the reduction in management jobs expected in the next few years.
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CommentA missed opportunity to improve care for long-term conditions
Senior fellow at The King’s Fund Nick Goodwin on on the role of GPs in managing long-term conditions.
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LeaderConflicting messages from the top hint at growing resistance
Have the tone of messages from the NHS chief executive and health secretary ever been as different as those emerging from Sir David Nicholson and Andrew Lansley? At last week’s health questions in the House of Commons, ministers got stuck into “pen pushers”. Contrast this language with Sir David’s latest ...