External contributors – Page 241
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Comment'Complaints about NICE on one page and useless, costly drugs on another'
After a summer in which Labour’s health team was off fighting a leadership contest and the Liberal Democrat team was co-opted into government, health politics are livening up. No more Mr Nice Guy seems to be John Healey’s message.
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CommentNHS efficiency savings could get a rough ride
What is the difference between a cut and an efficiency saving? And will patients be able to tell the difference?
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NHS underspends under the microscope
It is one of the most common dilemmas of NHS financial management. The trust sets an annual expenditure budget. A budget holder underspends - no doubt for excellent reasons - and wants to carry the unspent balance forward into the following financial year.
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CommentBig Society: little guys vs big guns
The third sector is uniting in the hope of building enough clout to win the big society contracts
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Comment‘Labour MPs who call the Osborne way Thatcherism Mk II are not up to speed’
It took less than a week for some vociferous supporters of George Osborne’s £81bn spending cuts experiment to get cold feet about the likely consequences for lower economic growth. The government “cannot cut its way to prosperity”, business leaders warned on Monday.
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CommentGPs in the driving seat?
It seems GPs are not really up for being put “in the driving seat” of NHS reform.
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Comment'Who will own the NHS?'
Somewhere between this week’s spending review and the parliamentary debates on the Health Bill, we will learn where the real balance of power between the commissioning board and GP consortia will lie.
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Comment‘Part of “Waiting for Osborne” consisted of Lansley reassuring voters he has GP support’
At a conference the other day I heard an entrepreneurial medic giving a glowing account of a GP led consortium and all the wonderful Lansley style things it is doing for its patients in the South. Oh brave new world!
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CommentMedia Watch: digital drive and damaging cuts
After cloth merchant Sir Philip Green got backs up last week with talk of waste, Martha Lane Fox is the latest entrepreneur to try telling public servants how to do their jobs.
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Comment'La La is throwing his limited political capital into reshuffling bureaucracy'
It’s all getting rather confusing with La La Lansley. Is he the mild mannered janitor who turns in to Hong Kong Phooey, or is he just the janitor for Stephen Dorrell?
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Comment'What will a real increase in the NHS budget actually mean?'
The 2010 spending review has announced a real rise each year for NHS funding to 2014-15. However, other spending departments now face a horror show of real cuts in their budgets.
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CommentAn action plan for busting NHS deficits
An action plan is needed now to ensure acute trusts do not run out of money in 2011
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CommentMake the most of your transferable skills
You want to change career, secure a new role, position yourself for a job in a GP consortium or maybe move into a different sector. So you need to know how to identify, present and evidence your transferable skills.
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CommentCuts, car parks and care records
The media gave a good few pages over to the NHS this week, taking in cuts, car parks and care records, but no obvious mention of the other C word: commissioning.
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CommentWhat was he thinking?
What’s that? Our former health boss, cheerful Alan Johnson, as shadow chancellor and Andy Burnham switched to the education brief, where he has been quick to condemn coalition plans to raise student tuition charges? What was Ed Miliband thinking?
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CommentTake the lead in preventing ill health
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Britain was known as “the sick man of Europe”. Then it related to industrial strife and poor economic performance. Now we are in danger of regaining that mantle, but this time in public health terms.
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CommentCompetition could change the face of healthcare
Competition could change the health landscape in the same way it did with gas, electricity and telecoms
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CommentThe power of checklists in the NHS
With the level of change the NHS faces, it is crucial to keep everyone focused and on target.
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CommentMark Britnell: Have foundation trusts realised their potential?
Australian interest in foundation trusts has thrown their achievements into stark relief