External contributors – Page 217
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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CommentOur lives are in the cancer detectives’ hands
Helping GPs to hone their skill at identifying cancer early will go a long way to improving survival rates
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CommentHealth insurance is a game of poker, against an expert
“NICE is accountable to the public,” Lord Crisp - the former NHS chief executive - advised Parliament last week. “What we don’t need is to import American style private sector rationing where individuals find themselves the victims of decisions made in private by individual insurance companies where nobody is accountable.”
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CommentAndrew Murrison on the military covenant
The British public is discerning. It may doubt the validity of UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan but gives the thumbs up to the means of its prosecution.
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CommentMedia Watch: targets and treatment
The last week and a half proved a good few days for journalists, but a less good few days for NHS managers and their staff.
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Comment'NHS cuts will come off a far fatter bird'
It won’t have changed your life much, but MPs have been squabbling for weeks now over the future size of the NHS budget under the coalition’s plans for the next five years. “Bigger or smaller?” critics demand to know. Yes or no, does it change anything?
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CommentWhat happened to courage?
A client describes the following scenario to me. The 24-year-old son of a close friend has lost his job in the fallout from the sudden collapse of the business in which he was working.