All Comment articles – Page 220
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Comment
Noel Plumridge: feeling the squeeze
Dupuytren’s contracture is a condition that causes fingers to bend towards the palm. Named after the French surgeon who first described the condition in 1834, it mainly affects men - a reported one in five men aged over 60 - and is most prevalent among people of northern European descent.
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Effective regulation needs the right touch, at the right time
The chief executive of a troubled NHS trust recently remarked to me: “The problem was, we thought we worked for the regulators, not for our patients.”
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South east coast PCTs face uncertain financial futures
Heading towards the end of the 2010-11, the financial situation for primary care trusts in the South East Coast differs markedly across the region.
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'Without a firm battle plan, consortia might find themselves neither here nor there'
The grand old health secretary risks getting the new consortia stuck on the hill, unless a change in strategy to push them higher up the slope of success is attempted.
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Media Watch: abortion, obesity and homosexuality proivde perfect storm
The Sunday Telegraph found something of a perfect storm in its story about gay NHS managers being sent on a “luxury junket”.
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Noel Plumridge: trapped in PFI purgatory
Of the 16 pages of last week’s Managing the Transition letter from Richmond House, the provider side of the NHS occupies a mere three paragraphs. One about the foundation trust “pipeline”, one on separating primary care trusts from their former provider arms and one on encouraging the independent sector.
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Your Humble Servant: A twit tweets
Separating the tweet from the chafe around the blogosphere, a twit begins to tweet.
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Targets in sharp focus for the North West
The Department of Health might appear to hate targets these days, but you could be forgiven for thinking the news has not travelled north.
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Media Watch: letters from David Cameron
Not satisfied with the “see it from space” scale of the current NHS reorganisation, the Daily Telegraph warned another change of “seismic” proportions is heading the public sector’s way.
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Michael White: 'Price competition has never been the policy... Yeah, right.'
To be frank with you, I’d never heard of David Bennett before he was unexpectedly promoted to become the new chair of Monitor, as it evolves into the economic regulator to the entire NHS. Truly this is a real-life version of Eric Carle’s children’s story The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Guess ...
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Andrew Dillon: the new mission for NICE
The white paper Liberating the NHS and the Health Bill currently going through Parliament describe a radically new architecture for the NHS together with a new, outcomes based approach to driving improvements in care.
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Can value-based drug pricing deliver a 'postcode lottery' alternative?
Value-based drug pricing is meant to reduce the postcode lottery but could end up achieving the opposite.
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Transparency in London reveals hive of activity
Are the GPs in south-west London the most proactive in the capital?
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Noel Plumridge: the true cost of training
In a transparent, rules based funding system like payment by results, how can we ensure a steady flow of financial goodies to the deserving rich in the London teaching hospitals?
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Competition can work, but only with the right tactics
“Competition in health care should be tactical not ideological”. This was the main message from the “Competition versus integration in the NHS” debate organised by the Cambridge Health Network and the King’s Fund
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Media Watch: drunks and royals give NHS staff little cause to raise a glass
One health story got the attention of all of the nationals this week - an Alcohol Concern report on the pressure placed on the NHS by drinking.
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Michael White: away from NHS reforms, healthcare problems - and solutions - still sound familiar
Let’s try even harder to cheer ourselves up this week by averting our gaze from NHS reforms and looking at a near neighbour with more pressing healthcare dilemmas. Not to mention deeper budget gloom. No prizes for guessing I was in Dublin recently.
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Bill Moyes: the reform agenda presents a massive opportunity
The government’s reform agenda for the NHS isn’t the beginning of the end of a primarily tax funded healthcare system. The reforms are probably the best way to preserve that for another generation or more. So, instead of focusing on the risks, let’s give more attention to the opportunities.
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Noel Plumridge: saying the unsayable
A section of the Health Bill that hopefully won’t often be invoked applies commercial insolvency law to foundation trusts. Section 113 places broke NHS hospitals under broadly the same winding-up regime as bankrupt companies. With falling tariff prices and rigid hospital cost structures, it will probably be tested before long.