External contributors – Page 239

  • Liz Kendall on urgent care efficiency
    Comment

    Liz Kendall on urgent care efficiency

    2009-11-19T00:00:00Z

    More hospital admissions could be avoided if people needing emergency and urgent care were managed differently rather than just being taken to A&E

  • Jon Restell
    Comment

    Jon Restell: NHS managers on the ropes

    2009-11-19T00:00:00Z

    Everyone I talk to assumes that managers in the health service must be sweating.

  • Paul Corrigan
    Comment

    Paul Corrigan: commissioning competencies

    2009-11-19T00:00:00Z

    Most, if not all, primary care trusts will improve their commissioning competencies over the next few months. This will be an important step towards gearing up commissioning to play its full role.

  • Steve Ford
    Comment

    Media Watch: patient records

    2009-11-19T00:00:00Z

    Medical records and their security, or lack of, was the main topic likely to pique NHS managers’ interest in the news this week - if, that is, you discount stories about the “miracle jab for snorers” and the “mindbend potheads” who are apparently flooding the NHS.

  • Michael White
    Comment

    Michael White: lessons from US healthcare

    2009-11-19T00:00:00Z

    I stumbled on a way of thinking about NHS budgets the other day which I hadn’t previously encountered.

  • Ken Jarrold on motivating NHS managers
    Comment

    Ken Jarrold on motivating NHS managers

    2009-11-16T00:00:00Z

    The latest annual health check ratings raise some important and difficult questions. It is time to think again about performance management.

  • David Nicholson
    Comment

    David Nicholson: ride the wave of NHS innovation

    2009-11-12T00:00:00Z

    Linking quality and productivity via innovation to produce efficiency gains is the most important long term challenge facing the NHS, and it needs action at all levels

  • Stephen Eames
    Comment

    Stephen Eames on managing the future of the NHS

    2009-11-12T00:00:00Z

    At a recent trust board seminar to review our performance and development over the past year, we recognised that we were at a watershed moment. We acknowledged the years ahead would be driven by the recession and the multibillion pound recovery programme the government intends to generate from public services.

  • Cally Bann
    Comment

    Cally Bann: Halloween and bonfire night bash

    2009-11-12T00:00:00Z

    Running a hospital? Meat and drink. Organising the annual staff Halloween meets bonfire night?  Don’t even go there.  

  • Steve Ford
    Comment

    Media Watch: private patients, statins and scurvy

    2009-11-12T00:00:00Z

    Although the row over the sacking of government drugs adviser David Nutt continued to dominate the headlines, many health correspondents sought their fixes elsewhere this week.

  • Michael White
    Comment

    Michael White: FT freedoms and the election

    2009-11-12T00:00:00Z

    Barely a couple of days pass without some potentially significant policy shift on the health and social care front from the political parties.

  • David Colin-Thomé on practice based commissioning
    Comment

    David Colin-Thomé on practice based commissioning

    2009-11-12T00:00:00Z

    I feel I need to contribute further to the debate generated by my recent choice of words - used while attempting to raise the profile of practice based commissioning implementation.

  • Sheila Williams on watching your language
    Comment

    Sheila Williams on watching your language

    2009-11-09T00:00:00Z

    I have been thinking about language. May I invite you to leave the frenzy of the dance floor and come out onto the balcony?

  • Noel Plumridge
    Comment

    Noel Plumridge on medicine’s gender balance

    2009-11-05T00:00:00Z

    Supposing it were possible for an observer from 50 years ago to be miraculously teleported into one of today’s NHS hospitals - what would seem most different? 

  • Carmel Gibbons on NHS leadership in the recession
    Comment

    Carmel Gibbons on NHS leadership in the recession

    2009-11-05T00:00:00Z

    Inspiring leaders required to steer NHS through tough times. Excellent opportunities for creative individuals. Others need not apply

  • Paul Corrigan
    Comment

    Paul Corrigan on clinical leadership

    2009-11-05T00:00:00Z

    Over the last couple of years we have all become used to the importance of clinical leadership for the development of the NHS. In fact in the management of a health service it’s really quite difficult to conceive of an argument against it.

  • Dave West
    Comment

    Media Watch: drugs debate

    2009-11-05T00:00:00Z

    The sacking of senior government adviser David Nutt has resulted in the biggest media debate on illegal drugs for many months.

  • Michael White
    Comment

    Michael White on health debates

    2009-11-05T00:00:00Z

    Handy Andy Burnham, our youthful health secretary and Clark Kent lookalike, slipped out of Britain on Tuesday, heading west towards Washington - safely out of the row over home secretary Alan Johnson’s rash dismissal of David Nutt.

  • Nicky Spencer on the pitfalls of email
    Comment

    Nicky Spencer on the pitfalls of email

    2009-11-03T00:00:00Z

    Every magnificent technological advance in communications presents us with a double edged sword. The battle for the effective use of email is just beginning.

  • Michael White
    Comment

    Michael White on unaccountable PCTs

    2009-10-30T00:00:00Z

    Rare indeed is a Sunday night call by this column which yields a mention of primary care trusts and ancient Greek philosopher cum intellectual hard man Plato, virtually in the same breath.