Comment archive – Page 429

  • Comment

    Ofcare: 'Ambitions and metrics' mark launch of a new regulatory era

    2007-06-07T00:00:00Z

    'Ofcare's performance framework commences with mea culpa, admitting what healthcare professionals have been telling the Department of Health for years - top-down targets undermine innovation, motivation and accountability to communities'

  • Comment

    Emma Dent's Malawi diary

    2007-06-04T00:00:00Z

    When HSJ senior features writer Emma Dent was asked to join an Oxfam and Unison delegation to poverty-stricken Malawi, she got a lot more than she bargained. Read her day-by-day account of the trip here.

  • Comment

    Neil Goodwin on public service reform

    2007-06-04T00:00:00Z

    'If there is one lesson to be learnt.from the past 10 years, it is to pay much more attention to implementing change. Far better to implement half-a-dozen change strategies effectively than to fire off a dozen in a scattergun way, hoping some will hit the mark'

  • Comment

    Emma Dent

    2007-05-31T00:00:00Z

    'Malawi has.only 700 healthcare workers for the whole country. One nurse can be in charge of 100 patients in rural clinics. It has the third worst maternal mortality rate in the world. Not even disposable gloves are available.'

  • Comment

    Mike Cooke on succession planning

    2007-05-28T00:00:00Z

    'I came back with gusto, lungs full, laptop (and pencil) poised and with best away-visit intentions started with my job. I am delighted to say we did fill my job with a great internal candidate'

  • Comment

    Deborah O'Dea on coping with change

    2007-05-28T00:00:00Z

    'Change is no less difficult when our intentions are absolutely right and serving patients' best interests.'.

  • Comment

    Your Humble Servant: dead man walking

    2007-05-24T00:00:00Z

    ‘It’s difficult to know who to ingratiate yourself with, which policies might survive and which we should backpedal on.’

  • Comment

    Micheal White on Maggie's handbag and other stories

    2007-05-24T00:00:00Z

    Thirty years after filing his first column, HSJ political commentator Michael White looks back at how the landscape has changed

  • Gordon Brown
    Comment

    Brown finally begins to reveal his blueprint for health reform

    2007-05-24T00:00:00Z

    As the surreal spectacle of Gordon Brown campaigning for victory in a contest he has already won continues, his interviews and speeches are finally shedding light on his health policies.

  • Comment

    Delayed discharge brought back in focus

    2007-05-24T00:00:00Z

    Bed blocking is back and, at least in mental health, it is joint working with social care teams where the most effort needs to be applied.

  • Comment

    Dr Nick Griffin on clinical input in the development of HRG4

    2007-05-21T00:00:00Z

    In 2002, the Department of Health developed a policy to fund healthcare by a national tariff applied to patient level activity. This policy, payment by results, required a new currency for the grouping of activity.

  • Comment

    Andrew Jones on independence day

    2007-05-21T00:00:00Z

    'The conundrum is simply how to devolve day-to-day responsibility to an independent board with the benefits of efficient delivery, local decisions and avoidance of political interference'

  • Comment

    Emma Dent

    2007-05-17T09:46:42Z

    'I have never had such a strong reaction as I did when I told people I was visiting the high-secure former special hospital Broadmoor.'

  • Comment

    Commissioning: Practices may need a fairy godmother to make PBC work

    2007-05-17T00:00:00Z

    Practice-based commissioning is the 'Cinderella' policy reform of the NHS.

  • Comment

    Back innovation and good judgement in primary care

    2007-05-17T00:00:00Z

    Primary care trusts.are bound to weigh proposals fairly, but they cannot be compelled by entrepreneurs to make reckless decisions.

  • Comment

    David Woodhead on the qualities of commissioners

    2007-05-14T21:00:44Z

    'Driving change in numerous organisations demands particular skills. We no longer spoke of what people needed to know, or what their qualifications might be, but of the qualities they had and how they approached their work'

  • Comment

    The NHS is far from 'saved'

    2007-05-14T00:00:00Z

    I am astonished to see your comment piece claiming current policies have 'saved the NHS'. It certainly doesn't seem like it to me or any of my colleagues, and I wonder which planet the author has been on.

  • Comment

    Bed-blocking does not tell the full story

    2007-05-14T00:00:00Z

    I read the article on bed-blocking with interest as my mother has been a patient in a foundation trust in the North West for nearly six months following a severe stoke.

  • Comment

    PBC needs to look at the big picture

    2007-05-14T00:00:00Z

    In response to Simon Stevens' article on practice-based commissioning (opinion, page 17, 3 May), PBC has to be for all practices. If nothing else, PBC is about raising the eyes of GPs and practice management to understand the wider commissioning impact of their actions.

  • Comment

    Louis Appleby on reaching out to BME communities

    2007-05-14T00:00:00Z

    'The term Positive Steps is an important one. The words and the actions coming from services must be positive. There is only so long that we can talk about the problem before talking about it gets in the way of tackling it.'