Comment archive – Page 379
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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?
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LeaderThere is no time to waste as GPs grasp the scale of the challenge
If primary care trust managers, GPs or indeed anyone else thought the consultation document on commissioning accompanying the white paper would answer most of their questions about the new policy, they have now been disabused.
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CommentMark Goldman on fatal mistakes in the NHS
We relive dramatic moments in the media on action replay. Something terrible happens; a missed penalty, a putt hanging on the edge of the hole or a tyre bursting on the final lap.
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CommentMedia Watch: lazy and unproductive?
Many NHS staff won’t be getting a pay rise and fear for their jobs, but they are lazy and unproductive too, newspaper reports suggest.
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CommentMichael White: Lansley's five priorities for the NHS
It was cheering to spot Andrew Lansley’s five priorities for the NHS, public health and social care on the department’s website the other day. We need reassurance that he does have a coherent overview.
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CommentSteve Preston on how to win through redundancy
The challenging public service picture is changing redundancies in the health service from rarity to stark reality.
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Leader‘Heroic’ NHS managers get their due from friend and foe
“Heroic” is not a word often used to describe NHS managers, so well done to NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson for praising the individual efforts of primary care trust and strategic health authority leaders.
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CommentAnswering the NHS's £14bn productivity question
Government efforts have reduced the NHS productivity challenge by £6bn, but also increased its instability
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CommentMark Britnell: PCTs can carve out a new role
Judging from the anxious reaction to the white paper this is not a time for the faint-hearted. It is time for bold leadership. For those who relish disruptive innovation, this is the time to seize the opportunities presented by discontinuity.
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CommentMedia Watch: eye-watering, mouth-watering NHS cash
As the dust settles on last week’s health white paper, it seems the newspapers believe the reforms will lead to somebody somewhere making easy money.
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CommentMichael White: the cancer target
A thoughtful politician friend of mine said with uncharacteristic impatience the other day: “No, I don’t think the coalition knows what it’s doing at all. I think it’s all over the place.”
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CommentYour Humble Servant: Going La La
‘Up pops La La at the Royal Marsden Hospital, in Parliament and on Newsnight saying he had no idea it would come to this’