Comment archive – Page 399
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Leader
DH must step in to protect the vulnerable
The government needs to rethink its plan to exclude sectioned mental health patients from the protection of the Corporate Manslaughter Act for up to five years.
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Comment
Your Humble Servant: Confed blues
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Fancy phrases
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Comment
Michael White on private vs public
The detail I am most likely to remember from this week's events is the revelation that when Harold Macmillan was chancellor in 1956 he suppressed evidence of the link between cancer and smoking.
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Comment
Media Watch: co-payment 'madness'
The fraught issue of 'co-payment' was one of the biggest health service stories this week, following the death of Linda O'Boyle from bowel cancer.
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Comment
Ian Magee on data sharing
Data sharing in the NHS and other public bodies can present risks, but it is crucial in protecting vulnerable patients and the public.
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Comment
Steve Slack on why being gay is still bad for your health
Despite improvements in UK legislation protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, discrimination is still affecting the quality of health and social care this community receives.
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Comment
Ali Mohammed on firing staff
Thank goodness The Apprentice is back on TV. It's basically the HR type's ultimate TV programme with a huge dose of entertainment built in.
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Comment
Andrew Jones on health outcomes
One thing that seems to be uniting healthcare policy makers is the urge to tackle so-called health inflation.
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Comment
Lesley Wright on standardising work
Anyone planning a holiday that involves flying will have to have faith in the skills of a highly trained pilot and navigator to get them to their destination.
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Leader
Drugs' benefits go further than the patient
The vertiginous rise in mental health costs predicted in a King's Fund report this week should trigger debate about which drugs are approved for use.
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Leader
Vulnerable people's fate must not fall to faceless bureaucracy
Health secretary Alan Johnson has called for a 'national debate' on how we will meet the needs and costs of an ageing population.
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Comment
Awards previews
Acute Healthcare Organisation of the Year sponsored by CHKSSouth Tees Hospitals trust has been on what can only be described as a quite extraordinary journey. You don’t have to go back very many years at all to find an organisation struggling under the burden of£56 million of debt and two ...
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Comment
Media Watch: bets on Johnson
Managers may be tempted to swell trust coffers by taking a punt on health secretary Alan Johnson to be prime minister, with most papers quoting odds of six to one to replace Gordon Brown.
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Comment
Sophia Christie on world class organisations
The assurance process for world class commissioning is developing apace but with no national development programme, many in primary care trusts are wondering where to focus attention.
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Comment
Michael White on dementia services
Being in government is a bit like fighting forest fires, the kind that sweep through tinder-dry acres in countries a lot hotter than ours.
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Comment
This week's All Our Yesterdays
Public Assistance Journal and Health and Hospital Review, June 4 1948From the National Association of Local Government Social Welfare Officers annual conference presidential address: "The conference meets as a time when changes in the social welfare and assisting services are about to be out into operation and when members of ...
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Comment
Jo Davis on forming a successful council of governors
One year on from rising to the challenge of chairing her first governors' meeting, Jo Davis explains how the steps she took to prepare herself allowed an open and interactive group to flourish
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Comment
Paul Corrigan and Ben Page on PCT accountability
If public services really were owned by the public, accountability would always be at the core of their business. But since this is not the case, all public services must continuously review how they are held accountable.
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Comment
Detailed care records - a closer look
Despite the perceived benefits of electronically linking a patient's medical records, significant barriers must be overcome before the plan becomes a reality, as Mary Hawking explains
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Comment
Richard Gleave on patients as consumers
The NHS attracts only occasional media attention in the US, but the recent debate about top-up funding and co-payments for high-cost cancer drugs was covered by The New York Times.