All Comment articles – Page 232
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CommentJenny Rogers: Dropping the defensiveness
Wrestling with large organisations when you are a mere minnow yourself certainly takes focus and energy. In the wake of my husband’s death in July this year, I faced the crassness and inefficiency of our bank, NatWest, when my credit card was suddenly withdrawn with no warning.
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CommentThe public health white paper: sizing up reactions
HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle gathers reaction to last week’s public health white paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People.
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CommentThe hospital guide and NHS whistleblowers
Last week The Observer had its exclusive on the Dr Foster Hospital Guide, this week it got a telling off about it.
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CommentSharing healthcare costs, pooling healthcare risks
Size seems to be back in vogue. There are two main reasons for the “big is beautiful” organisational trend, and it is important to distinguish between them, as their impacts on that overriding £20bn NHS savings target are quite different.
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CommentMichael White: caution and openness
Watching Andrew Lansley introduce MPs to his “nudge” white paper on public health, I was struck by how much it is still a first draft and by how enthusiastic the new generation of Conservative MPs is for bossiness.
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Comment'Don't allow healthcare and public health improvement to be divided'
The raison d’être of local government is that elected councillors best represent residents’ concerns.
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CommentWe're feeling stretched, but we must not snap
One colleague escapes redundancy to find his role is to continue but across three newly merged directorates.
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CommentAlan Maryon-Davis is dreaming of a white paper
There’s plenty of Christmas cheer in the public health white paper. Warming words about the importance of protecting and improving health.
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CommentMedia Watch: Shame on you
The Observer bagged the tenth Dr Foster Hospital Guide exclusive, leading with an exposé of the trusts it said “shame the NHS”.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: Must no deficit mean saying no to delivery?
According to the recently published Department of Health report on the first quarter of 2010-11, no primary care trusts are forecasting a deficit this financial year.
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Comment'Stalinist Whitehall controls will be needed'
I felt a bit sorry for Phil Morley, chief executive of the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals Trust, getting roughed up on the radio after Dr Foster’s sleuths named his patch as the place where patients are most likely to die of complications after routine operations.
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CommentBruce Keogh and Ian Dalton on death rates
Comparing death rates for heart surgery is difficult enough even when you look at just a single procedure and use well-honed algorithms. When it involves an institutional aggregate of many procedures and diagnoses, it becomes much more difficult.
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CommentAli Parsa: the NHS must learn to put quality ahead of price
Under a new approach to procurement, value for money rather than price will determine who is awarded contracts
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CommentParliament, prudence and productivity
What Commons health committee chair Stephen Dorrell said to HSJ last week was not symptomatic of a tiff between him and Andrew Lansley. More significant issues are coming into play.
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CommentMark Britnell: quick fixes for making efficiency gains
Some people think more cash is coming for the NHS, but just in case it isn’t, here are some instant gains we can make in the meantime
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Comment'The challenge is to get better average outcomes and reduce variation'
Post-Blair Labour health “reforms” overemphasised a centrist, target driven culture that tended to distort how care might best be delivered. It marginalised clinical staff, leaving them often to adopt a stance of disgruntled passivity.
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Comment'Dorrell argues now for quiet pragmatism, for letting change evolve'
Am I just imagining it? Or did Andrew Lansley start to modify his combative message to the NHS, its suspicious staff and customers, even before Stephen Dorrell’s striking intervention in the reform debate courtesy of last week’s HSJ?
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CommentMedia Watch: All eyes are on Lansley
Health secretary Andrew Lansley is not a politician to wilt in the face of criticism, which probably came in handy last week.