External contributors – Page 237
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Comment
Sophia Christie on making an impact on male mortality
I can’t live without my burgers, my chips or the doner meat. I know they are bad, I can see the fat dripping out of it…
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Comment
Norman Lamb and his love of rap
As populist scare stories go, The Sun has got to be applauded this week for combining two of the nation’s (largely unfounded) fears: drug users and swine flu - not just once but twice.
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Comment
Steve Preston: Top tips to keep your career going
Do you see the announcements about radical NHS funding cuts and the changing agenda as a threat or an opportunity? Now might be a good time to start re-evaluating and managing your future to meet the challenges.
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Comment
How to ensure choice in maternity services
If the government’s pledge, laid down in Maternity Matters, that all women in England should have the choice of a home birth by the end of 2009 is to be met, every maternity service should be discussing home birth with every woman.
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Comment
Joan Saddler on patient centred services
Actively seeking out and acting on patient feedback to shape services is still far from the norm but is fundamental to putting quality at the heart of the NHS.
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Comment
Media Watch: the shrill cries of the doomsayers
Depending on which paper you read this week, you could be forgiven for thinking you were living in two different countries.
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Comment
Stephen Eames on the need to make changes
Sunday morning and it looks as if it is going to be a hot day - a precursor to a long hot summer dominated by organising surge plans to combat pandemic flu, while digesting the impact of another central initiative on quality, innovation, improvement and productivity, otherwise known as “QIPP”.
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Comment
Paul Corrigan on commissioning strategy plans
Nearly all primary care trust commissioning strategy plans describe a rationale for their intentions over the next five years. Tailored to the health and healthcare needs of their population, they describe future actions which intend to move activity out of secondary care, and cut emergency admissions and attendance at A&E.
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Comment
Michael White on the future of healthcare funding
For a politician in his situation, care services minister Phil Hope was in a remarkably cheerful mood when I caught up with him to find out how well - or badly - his department’s latest green paper had been received.
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Comment
Jenny Rogers on tendering
The person on the telephone sounds very young. I am stifling incredulity at her request. “You mean you want me to tender for this?” I ask.
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Comment
Survey: How do you think the NHS is coping with swine flu?
Health Service Journal and Nursing Times would like to hear about the experience of swine flu by NHS staff so we can share with you, via our magazines and websites, how nurses and managers are feeling and what support they are getting.
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Comment
Noel Plumridge: the optimism bias uplift
The crowd from the finance department were relaxing in the Rat and Weasel musing on life’s three inevitables: death, taxes… and the private finance initiative.
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Comment
Media Watch: is Burnham the new Pants Man?
As swine flu takes increasing hold it will be interesting to see how the national papers’ coverage of the pandemic begins to diverge.
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Comment
Michael White on swine flu and infectious attitudes
There comes a time when even a “keep calm” column has to acknowledge that Britain seems to be edging towards a swine flu pandemic. Alas, there is no antiviral to protect more vulnerable groups like politicians from exhibiting alarming symptoms.
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Comment
Clare Chapman: on being ready for the NHS constitution
How ready are we for the NHS constitution? Subject to the Health Bill being passed, all providers of NHS services will be under a legal duty to have regard to the new contract. Legal duties already in law will have to be fulfilled too and we will need to work ...
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Comment
Your Humble Servant on private lessons
We are all still reeling from the shock news of Mark Britnell’s sudden departure for pastures more remunerative. Thankfully he has left us with a commissioning sector which no one else in the world can match… and oddly none has sought to do so.
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Comment
Ken Jarrold: Five ways to give feedback
Feedback is one of the most valuable gifts our colleagues can give us. To find someone who has the tact, courage and skill to tell you honestly how you are doing is a very rare thing indeed. In 36 years of full time work I had seven good appraisals.
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Comment
The social care green paper: What's in it for the NHS?
NHS managers could be forgiven for asking why they should be interested in the government’s long-awaited Green Paper on adult social care. The prospect of swine flu, shifting political priorities and impending fiscal gloom might seem enough to worry about.
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Comment
Simon Stevens: on lifestyles and living beyond 100
If all goes well, next month my wife’s grandma will turn 100. That is a birthday only around one in 5,000 of her peers will be around to celebrate. Not bad for a woman who, like millions of others, emigrated between the two world wars from eastern Europe to New ...
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Comment
Michael White: on patient safety and savvy spending
I had an odd experience at the weekend. Reading the Commons health select committee’s depressing report on patient safety, I kept thinking of the more visible drama now being played out over public expenditure and pay.