External contributors – Page 285
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All Our Yesterdays
October 1, 1954, Hospital and Social Service JournalA report by the Leeds City Medical Officer report on the city’s mental health services praised mental health social workers this week. ‘Nothing is too much trouble. Whether it is witnessing milk forms, taking youths and girls for interviews, helping and reassuring the ...
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Medical secretaries play a key role in the NHS
Media reports on problems in the NHS are mainly centred on the plight of medical and nursing staff and the way patient care is affected.However, there is a knock-on effect on other key staff in the NHS, who also work under immense pressure. I refer to medical secretaries and personal ...
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Pilots make all the difference
The article 'Pilots making little difference' states that, according to research, pilot projects that have focused on the government’s policy of shifting services from hospitals into the community have made little difference.In reality, far from achieving little, the pilots have helped identify key learnings that will enable NHS organisations to ...
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Dismissing improvement programmes misses the point
Alan Maynard's criticism of the quality improvement efforts under way for more than a decade in the NHS, and specifically of the role of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in that work, abounds with misunderstandings, write Stephen Thornton and Don Berwick
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Lisa Rodrigues on the traits of executives
Being a chief executive is a wonderful job for those with a well-developed sense of responsibility. I read somewhere that more leaders are firstborn children than any other family position and I can understand why. As the first child, you are automatically expected to take responsibility for your siblings. If, ...
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Media Watch
The papers are again keen to expose the 'scandal' of hospital food - this time the focus is on hospital kitchens. The Observer told readers of a 'searing indictment' of their cleanliness after government inspection reports revealed 'that breaches of food hygiene laws include infestations of mice and cockroaches, kitchen ...
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Emma Dent at the dentist
'Half an hour later I would emerge bleary-eyed, in pain and incapable of eating for days'
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Sophia Christie on facing up to diversity
'Her one-year-old's diet was two packets of crisps a day and a glass of milk'
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Michael White on panic politics
'I imagined patients queuing outside their local hospital, just like Northern Rock'
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Media Watch: breaking the habit
This week columnists seized on the case of a smoker apparently denied an NHS operation to fix his broken ankle unless he gives up a 20-a-day habit.
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Old-style GPs may go the same way as Britain's motor industry
‘Dr Buckman is in danger of doing for primary care what Derek ‘Red Robbo’ Robinson did for the British motor industry in the 1970s’
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Your Humble Servant: do as I say
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Do as I say not as I doDear DonI gather your fact-finding summer visit to South Africa with Mrs Wise and the children went well. Your thoughts on ambulance response times on safari have given our colleagues down there much ...
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Maker of all messages: from media to morale
Working as director of communications director at one of London's major hospitals is a multifaceted role. Alison Cahn recalls her time in the post
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High Court drugs ruling marks latest skirmish in war of words
The High Court ruling upholding the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's decision over medication for Alzheimer's is just the latest skirmish in what promises to be protracted manoeuvring over drug use and pricing.
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Michael White on politics
The old saying that 'it never rains but it pours' seems unusually apt this soggy summer. But this week the saying also applied to Britain's elderly people when the High Court ruling on Aricept, the Alzheimer's drug, was accompanied by a torrent of reports highlighting deficient aspects of their treatment.One ...
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Herts bags early winner with stadium bid
As the football season cranks into action, Watford have scored an early goal in a PFI partnership with West Hertfordshire Hospitals trust.The trust hopes to share£80m-£100m of its costs by building a new hospital in Watford as part of a development encompassing a new stadium, housing, a hotel and conference ...
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Medic's freedoms will reveal commitment to NHS autonomy
'The arrival of another world-class surgeon at Richmond House is a significant coup for NHS chief executive David Nicholson'
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All Our Yesterdays
September 4, 1941, Public Assistance Journal and Health & Hospital ReviewIn the Queries and Replies column this week: 'How much of the five shillings belonging to a ‘casual’ should be deducted from their unemployment insurance benefit when they are admitted to a casual ward.'Also: 'What are the reasonable charges for ...
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Looky likey
A reader writes: 'Here atHarrogateand District foundation trust we have been pondering the similarities between TV ad icon the MilkyBar Kid and our chief executive John Lawlor of Payment by Results tariff Lawlor Report fame. As my appraisal is due shortly and our annual increment has yet to be resolved, ...
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Anna Donald on drugs in the headlines
Hardly a day passes without press reports on products of one kind or another, be they heart drugs, vitamin tablets or laser surgery.Of late: the diabetes drugs Avandia and Actos may cause heart failure. Our national heart disease director Professor Roger Boyle thinks all men older than 50 should take ...