External contributors – Page 203
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CommentYour Humble Servant: survival of the fittest in the NHS
Perhaps we should look back to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to see who’ll survive in the dog-eat-dog world of health policy.
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CommentSally Gainsbury: the real problems affecting readmissions
How do we keep people out of hospitals – those giant, multimillion-pound “monuments to the failure of preventive medicine”, as one director of public health recently put it?
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CommentPrivate income avenues being explored in the South West
Five foundation trusts in the overcrowded provider landscape of east Dorset and west Somerset are all looking to drum up some more private business.
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Comment'Leadership is key to preventing another Mid Staffs'
Antony Sumara, who spent two years at Mid Staffs as interim chief executive, reflects on what has been learned from the inquiry so far and what questions still need answering.
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Comment'It's time for managers to stand up and be counted'
In the battle against Whitehall maybe the NHS needs its own Arab Spring – led by managers, suggests Kieran Walshie.
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Comment'Health services need a new type of investment to help achieve savings'
The constrains that the current funding model puts on the NHS means value for money improvements are almost impossible to translate into long term savings. Paul Corrigan looks at how a new model of investment can change this cycle.
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CommentMichael White: through choice comes different outcomes - and that way we learn
Politicians had barely shaken the sand from their shoes or packed away the bucket and spade before they were gripped by that hardy health perennial, proposed changes to Britain’s abortion law.
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CommentMedia Watch: onset of autumn provides a gloomy filter for health news
Maybe it was the autumnal August Bank Holiday weather that meant the national media largely looked at health through a gloomy lens this week.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: inflation is set to inflame the pension problem
The most important economic indicator this autumn is an old friend, reappearing like a toothache you’d forgotten about. It’s inflation.
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CommentHandful of trusts let down South East Coast on performance checks
Two sets of national checks and balances have revealed the South East Coast’s A* performers and those that “must try harder” when it comes to issues of patient experience.
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CommentNHS estate wrangles in the North West
What do you do with a private finance initiative hospital when it becomes the subject of service reconfiguration?
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Comment'Real change in public health will be made more difficult if service transfers are delayed'
The positive steps in transferring public health services to local control will be marred by the delay of children’s services until 2015 under recent government proposals. Graham Burgess argues the public health strategy needs more coherence if local commissioning plans are not to be undermined.
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CommentMichael White: avoiding the thing called IT
A new report in the Harvard Business Review suggests that big IT projects are spiralling out of control, at considerable cost to taxpayers, shareholders and customers. Naturally it made me think again of the NHS’s own national programme for IT drama, running expensively since 2003.
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Comment‘Inert’ or improving: the state of medical regulation
Alan Maynard argues the GMC’s ‘feeble’ regulation of doctors does little to benefit the NHS, but chief executive Niall Dickson says a new approach will protect patients.
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CommentMedia Watch: malnutrition nourishes the Mail
A mixed bag of health media coverage this week from the nationals, with the Daily Mail especially prolific.
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CommentSally Gainsbury: PROMs prove McKinsey right - nearly
The latest crop of patient reported outcome measures confirm huge numbers of patients do not feel any better after undergoing one of four measuredprocedures, and quite a few report feeling worse.
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CommentGrounds for optimism at last over London reconfiguration
It appears the NHS in London might get its wish on downgrading two hospitals.
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CommentTransforming trust aims high in the East of England
Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust’s ambitious aim to “become one of the best local hospitals in the country” is revealed in a “transformation programme” report in its most recent board papers.
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CommentCally Bann: is the healthcare landscape a thriller, a tragedy or a farce?
So as the summer breezes blows through the ever-greying tresses of the post-pause ministerial locks, what does the landscape around us foretell ofthe autumn and winter to come?
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CommentCarving out a path for clinically led commissioning
The big question nervously whispered in the shadows of the corridors of power is: “what will be different about clinically led commissioning?”. Many have sought the answer - few have found it. Paul Zollinger-Read sheds some light on the direction clinically led commissioning might take.