All Comment articles – Page 285

  • Comment

    Tackling violence

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    Despite the lack of a national standardised training scheme for dealing with violent patients, there are developments taking place in managing violence, writes Rob Grant

  • Comment

    Political opening hours

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    As a medical student, I sat in on GP clinics and recall whole mornings with patients seeing their charming GP, chatting, then leaving the room reassured but without a new diagnosis or treatment, writes Jake Low-Beer

  • Comment

    Guarantees are vital to ISTC success

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    Your piece on independent sector treatment centres, 'ISTC contract guarantees will saddle NHS with £187m bill', misses some fundamental points, writes David Worskett

  • Comment

    GP hours - what a mess

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    Well, well, well. What a shock the National Audit Office has stated that GPs earn lots more money for working fewer hours. This is something that has been widely known for some time, writes Les Collister

  • Comment

    Gill Morgan's great legacy

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    When we appointed Gill Morgan as chief executive of the NHS Confederation, we knew we were recruiting a very competent person - but we had no idea how widely valued and supremely effective she would become, writes Dianne Jeffrey

  • Comment

    Malcolm Lowe-Lauri on the role of FT governors

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    Foundation trust governors can and should exercise their influence in the wider community to benefit service users

  • Comment

    Use it or lose it: freedom from Whitehall is a two-way street

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    At last week's Primary Care Trust Network conference, the discussion with NHS chief executive David Nicholson revealed how hard it is for the centre to let go - especially when local health services won't release their grip on the Department of Health's hand.

  • Comment

    Media Watch: drug maker under scrutiny

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    Being accused of 'cheating the NHS' is enough to give anyone heartburn. So bosses at Reckitt Benckiser, makers of indigestion treatment Gaviscon, may well have sought comfort with a taste of their own medicine this week.

  • Comment

    Doubts over super-regulator

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    You do not mention an important question for the new super-regulator, writes Don Redding. Will it exist to serve patients and service users, and if so, how will it engage with them?

  • Comment

    PCT rebrand will help end identity crisis

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    Public sector rebranding exercises are often seen as a costly and pointless distraction. But the proposal to rebrand primary care trusts - so Oldham PCT would become NHS Oldham, for example - makes a great deal of sense and does not need to cost money.

  • Comment

    TV chaplains skew reality

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    A recent episode of Holby City showed a chaplain - described as a 'lay reader' from the so-called Holby Christian Fellowship - visiting a patient.

  • Comment

    Your Humble Servant: carry on nurses

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Ooh you are awful, but I like you

  • Comment

    Michael White on Darling's budget

    2008-03-13T09:00:00Z

    By the time you read this, Alistair Darling's first Budget will have reinforced Gordon Brown's latest promise to make our great public services more competitive and accountable to their customers. They are all Blairites now.

  • Comment

    AIDS: getting the word out to diverse communities

    2008-03-12T09:00:00Z

    Educating immigrant groups about the AIDS epidemic in the UK must be treated as a key public health priority, as Hazel Barrett explains

  • Comment

    All Our Yesterdays

    2008-03-11T12:47:09Z

    March 19, 1948, Public Assistance Journal and Health & Hospital ReviewJobs advertised this week: A resident nurse (female), who should be aged about 45 to 50, was required in an almshouse for men at Trinity Hospital, Greenwich. Applicants should have experience in home nursing and be used to treating elderly ...

  • Comment

    13 minutes to answer the phone? Life in the DH press office.

    2008-03-11T12:41:06Z

    The Department of Health press office was mysteriously not answering the phones the day the BMA revealed that 92 per cent of GPs had voted in favour of the directed enhanced service on extended hours. It took HSJ journalists a bind boggling 13 minutes to get through. Perhaps they were ...

  • Comment

    Andrew Jones on extending primary care

    2008-03-10T09:00:00Z

    As I opened the envelope from the British Medical Association, I found myself reflecting on a tumultuous few months. The envelope in question contained a justification of the GPs' committee's negotiating stance on extended hours and a form for voting on enhanced payments options.

  • Comment

    Surgeons are safe

    2008-03-06T09:00:00Z

    I am extremely disappointed that HSJ chose to print the accusation regarding patient safety and the certification of doctors for the specialist register, writes Paul Streets

  • Comment

    NHS pyramid scheme remains unchanged

    2008-03-06T09:00:00Z

    This week's report by HSJ shows that progress on driving up the lamentable levels of black and minority ethnic representation in NHS management ranks has stalled.

  • Comment

    West Kent patient safety

    2008-03-06T09:00:00Z

    Contrary to the comments made by shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley, West Kent primary care trust came into being in October 2006, some six months after the start of the outbreak of C difficile at hospitals run by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust, writes Bob Deans