Comment archive – Page 415
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Comment
Jeremy Porteus on NHS networking
It was during the shoulder-padded, champers-quaffing decade of excess known as the 1980s that the term 'networking' became popular.
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Comment
Hilary Thomas on caring for the whole patient
My 75-year-old father has recently had a coronary angiogram and been referred for bypass graft surgery. When I was a cardiology senior house officer in the Jurassic period, he would never have been referred for such surgery at this age.
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Comment
Paul Dutton on failing NHS foundation trusts
The Department of Health this month issued a consultation paper that rules out insolvency for hospital trusts that are failing financially, a move that risks undermining the original concept of what foundation trusts were meant to be and achieve.
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Comment
Sandy Watson on bringing young people to the NHS table
Any talk of engaging with the community and involving patients in shaping healthcare cannot ignore the needs and influence of its youngest citizens.
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Leader
Lib Dems take a cheap shot at managers
Any public sector manager thinking of voting for the Liberal Democrats at the next election might wish to reconsider after the ill-judged rant by Treasury spokesman Vince Cable at the party conference.
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Leader
NHS centralism is in the small print
Buried within the 59 pages of brittle-dry prose of an ‘impact assessment’ on the failure regime for foundering trusts are extraordinary assumptions by the Department of Health about how many providers will go to the wall.
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Comment
Michael White on the Liberal Democrats' conference
Apart from Norman Lamb's platform speech and a short midweek debate on the urgent needs of mental health, the health service wasn't very prominent on the Liberal Democrats' conference agenda in Bournemouth.
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Comment
Media Watch: NHS in the headlines
Headlines have been lent an oddly cinematic quality this week. In the horror category, Gordon Brown faced the 'revenge of the Blair Babes', according to The People. The Observer moved into gangster territory, imploring the prime minister to 'call off your mafioso aides'.
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Comment
Quint Studer on effective NHS leadership
Lord Darzi's bold recommendations for the NHS on its 60th anniversary have caused quite a stir in the UK and created many challenges for NHS leaders.Some of the goals set forth in the review are ambitious, but they are not insurmountable.
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Comment
Mike Hobbs on mental health discrimination
People with mental illness are subject to prejudice in our society. Although attitudes to people with anxiety and depression have improved, attitudes towards people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia have worsened.
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Comment
Lyn Whitfield on personal medical data
Did anyone else feel a twinge of unease about the NHS's 60th anniversary celebrations? I couldn't help thinking they were very backward looking; all those 1940s-style logos and pictures of nurses holding babies in knitted cardigans.
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Comment
Alan Maynard on managing the NHS market
The Darzi reforms, like dozens of ‘definitive’ reports and structural ‘redisorganisations’ over the 60 years of the health service, are experiments that may imperil or improve the lot of patients and taxpayers.
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Comment
Maggie Rae on world class efforts
The Olympics may be behind us but the legacy of rigorous training lives on in primary care trusts across the country as they prepare for the world class commissioning competency assessment process.
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Comment
Ali Mohammed on caring for NHS staff
Having just returned from holiday, I am once again struck by how much attention goes into the little things done by industries that focus heavily on customer care.
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Comment
Neil Goodwin on chief executive boredom
I have been reflecting on my time as a chief executive, specifically that in the latter part of my career I experienced increasing periods of boredom.
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Comment
Steve Field on the case for a GP-led health service
Lord Darzi's review of the NHS advocates a healthcare system led by clinicians and centred on patients - and rightly so.
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Comment
Jo Davis on balancing an NHS board
Board dynamics are potentially the most powerful, unseen and misunderstood force influencing a trust's decision-making and strategy.
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Leader
Pick and mix accounting clouds surplus predictions
The NHS year-end surplus may not be quite as easy to predict as you might think.
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Leader
No amount of health funding will be an antidote to poverty
As the political parties mobilise for the conference season it is tempting to believe there is broad consensus about the future of the NHS. But three debates that go to its heart are raging.
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Comment
Your Humble Servant on the NHS Constitution
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Constipated Constitution