All Comment articles – Page 235
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CommentYour Humble Servant: A twit tweets
Separating the tweet from the chafe around the blogosphere, a twit begins to tweet.
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CommentNoel 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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CommentBill 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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CommentMichael 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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CommentMedia 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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CommentCompetition 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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CommentNoel 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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CommentBailouts, arbitration and postcode lotteries in London
The higher than expected workload of the capital’s acute trusts has now seen bailouts, at least one arbitration and an intra-London postcode lottery as primary care trusts struggle to cope.
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Comment'It makes a welcome change to hear praise for NHS managers'
Sir David Nicholson’s letter to colleagues after the spending review recognised that great public service leadership “more than anything else” will be central to improving quality and productivity.
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CommentMidlands 'yet to be won over by GP commissioning'
Some providers and commissioners in the Midlands are yet to be won over by the managerial talents of local GPs, it seems.
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CommentMichael White: somwhere to escape the cuts
Wherever you turn at present it’s hard to escape the government’s cuts programme. I confirmed that (again) when I rang my sister at the nursery-infant-and-parenting unit she has worked in for many years. Their budget has been slashed, redundancies loom. Should she volunteer to go, taking decades of experience with ...
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CommentMedia Watch: papers picking up on dismissals
The tale of two advisers, both of whom have lost the ear of the government, was making the headlines at the start of this week.
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CommentYour Humble Servant: health mogul
‘Family doctor to health mogul? It’s what my patients want for me’
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CommentPost-reform NHS is life, still, but not as we know it
As the dust begins to settle a little on the furore that surrounded the introduction of the Health Bill last month, the wiser among us have started to think through what the new landscape might resemble.
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CommentNoel 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.
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CommentSuccessful healthcare mergers, like marriages, need a lot of hard work
Mergers and acquisitions of healthcare organisations in the developed world have become much more commonplace over the last decade.
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CommentMedia Watch: Cameron and Lansley spring into action
The week kicked off with the health secretary and prime minister both going into action to defend the Health and Social Care Bill, ahead of its second reading in parliament on Monday.
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CommentMichael White: opposition's political artillery fire rings hollow
A barrage of political artillery fire preceded Monday’s Commons second reading of the Health and Social Care Bill.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: the DH's fistful of figures
The Department of Health’s intent to maintain “grip” on NHS performance during 2011-12 is plain in the technical guidance to the NHS operating framework, issued in late January.