External contributors – Page 306
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Michael White on politics
'Some Labour MPs suspect the NHS could have run more such centres just as well'
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Michael White on the 'demise' of nursing
Sometimes the political weather seems to follow the climatic version. So it was no surprise during the snow to read a mild-mannered press release about training patterns under the lurid headline that we face 'the demise of nursing' in Britain.
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Media Watch: Patricia Hewitt
'Hewitt should back off', moaned The Daily Express. Most newspapers reacted with some contempt to the health secretary's statement that it is 'best practice' for doctors to order individuals to lose weight or give up cigarettes before they are treated.
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Simon Stevens on five ideas to innovate
Fly-on-the-wall documentaries typically only benefit the fly. This is a truth probably now held to be self evident at Rotherham foundation trust. But, if one of the things to take away from the BBC programme Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? was that ideally there would be more local initiative ...
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Patients' big chance to call the shots
Patients still feel they don't have a say in care decisions. But, says Vivienne Nathanson, a new bill gives them real influence - while Jessica Crowe emphasises how scrutiny committees will listen to their views
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Michael White on the Mental Health Bill
If the purpose of the bill is to improve supervised community treatment and to strengthen protection of the public where there is risk of violence, then vulnerable people must surely be encouraged to seek help - not to hide themselves away.
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Michael White on policy leaks
You can imagine my distress on returning from foreign parts to discover that things have been going on in the political health arena behind my back, much of it driven by a succession of top-level leaks to this very magazine.
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Media Watch: public health pay-off
'Outrage at hospital trust's pay-off after spat' said The Sun, as it revealed 'debt-ridden' Eastbourne Downs primary care trust had paid off its former public health director to the tune of £250,000 after a 'spat' with a colleague.
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Michael white on patient involvement
Some weeks ago a Labour MP, Patrick Hall, kindly invited me to a reception on the terrace of the House of Commons. Arriving late, I stood among the dissidents at the back as health minister Rosie Winterton explained her views on patient and public involvement in the NHS.
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Media Watch: earnings cap
So ministers have 'blundered' again, according to London's Evening Standard. This time it is because they have failed to cap doctors' earnings.
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Michael White on hospital infections
HSJ's January scoop about the enduring problems with MRSA and Clostridium difficile yielded parliamentary fruit the other day in the shape of a Tory-initiated Commons debate in which this magazine received generous publicity. Excellent.
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Media Watch: working for free
One test of a story's likely impact on the public is the range of newspapers that run it. On that basis, the story at the weekend that nurses, doctors and other staff at a Kent acute trust have been asked to do a day's work for no pay pretty much ...
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Media Watch
Given the arrival of a new prime minister and health secretary, most papers offered their advice to Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson.
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Media Watch
'A Sunday Times.article quoted a survey commissioned by health insurer BUPA, which found 55 per cent of senior doctors pay for medical insurance'
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Media Watch
News emerged over the weekend that the 'inflexible' hours of GP surgeries were costing the economy an estimated £1bn a year.
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Early learning is key weapon in obesity war
Concerns are mounting over rising obesity, but is enough being done to slim down the problem, asks Liz Kendall
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Media Watch
'As junior doctors struggle to find work The Sunday Times claimed that the Department of Health survey on GP workload would show that family doctors were earning more and working less'
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Comment
Public health Barometer, February 2007
The single biggest rise in confidence in the latest Barometer survey of public health directors was for the access target on sexual health services, the overall number up from 6.08 out of 10 to 7.09. At the other end of the scale, optimism on the 2010 childhood obesity target has ...
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Michael White on the Welsh NHS
Have we discussed the Welsh NHS lately? I thought not. But prescription charges are to be abolished in the principality on April 1, a month ahead of the Welsh Assembly elections and the day before Wales's new pub smoking ban starts.
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Sophia Christie on lessons from Sweden
One of the most distinctive characteristics of NHS trusts' work with US company Kaiser Permanente is also one of the least commented upon. Kaiser Health Plan is an insurance company in an exclusive partnership with the Permanente Medical Group, run as a profit share company for the participating partner doctors.