Comment archive – Page 448
-
Comment
Lean thinking
While there is evidence supporting a case management approach to the care of patients in the greatest need of healthcare, this has been less convincing than some seem to believe. Also, the creation of structures that are separate from general practice is both counter-intuitive and seems to run contrary to ...
-
Comment
Managing a merger? Don't lose the plot
A new era of NHS mergers is upon us. But lessons from the business world show that they can be painful and uncomfortable. Steve Downing outlines a theatrical route to tackling the problems
-
Comment
Efficiency indicators
The 'Better care, Better Value' indicators are an important step forward. The sickness absence rate in the NHS has never been below 4.5 per cent in the past decade. Despite investment to 'improve working lives' and the health of NHS employees it has remained resistant to change in almost all ...
-
Comment
Equality and recruitment
The NHS has a bad reputation when it comes to equality of opportunity. Historically it was slow to move from a colourblind approach to race, and many health organisations only introduced equal opportunity polices when they were required to by legislation.
-
Comment
Turnaround consultants
I am sure Malcolm Lowe-Lauri's opinion column on management consultants must have struck a chord with PCT colleagues who have been subjected to the turnaround process in recent months (page 17, 5 October). Although the consultants input has been valuable in some areas the benefits were not apparent in many ...
-
Comment
Sickness absence rates
The NHS Partners findings neatly sidestep the probability of false sickness absenteeism, or 'pulling a sickie', being a component of the 4.6 per cent absenteeism figure ( click here to read the full story).
-
Comment
Privacy in hospitals
I have always had a problem with issues of privacy in acute hospitals. I started my career as a clinical psychologist working with people with learning disabilities and being very aware that I was going into people's homes - even when they were in NHS care.
-
Comment
Efficiency indicators and Christie trust
Nick Edwards is quite right to suggest that efficiency indicators do not tell the story behind the numbers ( Click here to read the comment). So why did HSJcompound this by labelling Christie Hospital trust the worst in England ...
-
Comment
Reform and instability
'Why instability is inevitable' - Simon Stevens' article on the NHS and the J curve (page 19, 19 October) reminded me of a classic false syllogism: 'It always gets worse before it gets better.It certainly is getting worse. Therefore it will get better.'
-
Comment
Service redesign consultations
I worry we have lost the plot. In the last two weeks I have received four different letters from solicitors offering me advice on consultation. Post Derbyshire some colleagues have become obsessed with what we need to satisfy our legal friends. How grim. Have we really got to the point ...
-
Comment
Neil Goodwin on politicians, customer care and a portfoilo life
'I confess to not missing the grind of the job; 36 years is long enough for anyone. I also do not miss politicians who have a tendency to be personally abusive'
-
Comment
Emma Dent on warding off germs
'At the risk of sounding like a 'man flu'-affected member of the opposite sex, I am a bit alarmed that, as I write, it is well over a week since I first woke up feeling ropey and yet I am still coughing and spluttering like a 60 a day-er.'
-
Comment
Neil Goodwin...with the Beckhams in Venice
'Nothing would be worse for Beckham, Venice and the NHS to hear people say that they were once great but that was a long time ago'. Our new online-only columnist brings us the first of his regular diary piece charting life after NHS management
-
Comment
Appointments Commission
I was interested to see (page 8, 14 September 2006) that the Appointments Commission was insisting that previous experience as a chair was not excluded from candidate assessment even though HSJ had seen letters from that same commission which confirmed that such experience was indeed not to be taken into ...
-
Comment
The history of hospital administrators
What is the earliest reference to hospital administrators?In his book The Crusades through Arab Eyes(2006, Saqi Books) Amin Maalouf refers to the severe wounding of Buri, the leader of Damascus and son of Tughtigin, in 1131.
-
Comment
Trust websites
I don't know which is more alarming about your Working Lives article ('In on the act', page 26, 28 September), the idea that some unfortunate employee of the Healthcare Commission spent 285 hours studying NHS websites, or the reported remark that scanning a website for 30 minutes is only a ...
-
Comment
Electronic staff record
I was interested to read the letter from Ken Hutchinson, managing director of HR Strategic Solutions, which characterised the electronic staff record as a failed Department of Health initiative (Feedback, page 19, 28 September).
-
Comment
Pace of reform
Keith Palmer argues persuasively that there is a need to maintain the momentum of reform (Opinion, page 22, 12 October) but his analysis illustrates a fundamental difficulty. He focuses largely on secondary care and the only reference to general practices is about their referrals to other services, although he does ...
-
Comment
NICE and value for money
I am currently denied a particular course of medication, in the sense that NICE has determined that the NHS would not receive value for the £2,000 per month that it would cost.
-
Comment
Efficiency indicators do not tell the story behind the numbers
The comprehensive spending review is no longer the distant event it once seemed - the coming financial squeeze makes a numbers game out of the next 18 months or so.