External contributors – Page 306
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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
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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Comment
Maternity services are everyone's baby
Labour's most recent election manifesto promised that by 2009 all women would have choice on where and how they have their baby.
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Comment
Simon Stevens on the case for independence
It now seems likely that, regardless of political party, our next prime minister will toy with some version of 'independence' for the NHS. Independence for the Bank of England is seen as one of the government's more important reforms, so an NHS parallel could resonate. And shadow health secretary Andrew ...
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Comment
Much-needed campaign brought cheer in the midst of gloom
'Andy Burnham makes some thoughtful points about how managers can improve their own publicity'
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Comment
Petitions can a play role in local engagement
EM Forster famously gave democracy two cheers; the NHS seems rather less enthused.
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Comment
Hilary Thomas on living with cancer
'Acupuncture and ginger beer have been as effective as any the anti-emetics I've been doling out for years'
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Comment
Michael White on politics
'The charges problem boils down to a classic dilemma of democratic politics in a market-orientated society'
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Comment
Media watch
The irony is that 'taking politics out of the NHS' is sure to be mired in political speculation
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Comment
Data briefing: deficit forecasts, financial reality
The recent quarterly financial report from the Department of Health provides some encouraging signs as the NHS gets to grips with previous years' overspends. But the detail looks patchy.