External contributors – Page 306
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Comment
Mike Cooke on succession planning
'I came back with gusto, lungs full, laptop (and pencil) poised and with best away-visit intentions started with my job. I am delighted to say we did fill my job with a great internal candidate'
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Comment
Deborah O'Dea on coping with change
'Change is no less difficult when our intentions are absolutely right and serving patients' best interests.'.
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Comment
Your Humble Servant: dead man walking
‘It’s difficult to know who to ingratiate yourself with, which policies might survive and which we should backpedal on.’
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Comment
Micheal White on Maggie's handbag and other stories
Thirty years after filing his first column, HSJ political commentator Michael White looks back at how the landscape has changed
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CommentBrown finally begins to reveal his blueprint for health reform
As the surreal spectacle of Gordon Brown campaigning for victory in a contest he has already won continues, his interviews and speeches are finally shedding light on his health policies.
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Comment
Delayed discharge brought back in focus
Bed blocking is back and, at least in mental health, it is joint working with social care teams where the most effort needs to be applied.
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Comment
Dr Nick Griffin on clinical input in the development of HRG4
In 2002, the Department of Health developed a policy to fund healthcare by a national tariff applied to patient level activity. This policy, payment by results, required a new currency for the grouping of activity.
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Comment
Andrew Jones on independence day
'The conundrum is simply how to devolve day-to-day responsibility to an independent board with the benefits of efficient delivery, local decisions and avoidance of political interference'
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Comment
Commissioning: Practices may need a fairy godmother to make PBC work
Practice-based commissioning is the 'Cinderella' policy reform of the NHS.
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Comment
Back innovation and good judgement in primary care
Primary care trusts.are bound to weigh proposals fairly, but they cannot be compelled by entrepreneurs to make reckless decisions.
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Comment
David Woodhead on the qualities of commissioners
'Driving change in numerous organisations demands particular skills. We no longer spoke of what people needed to know, or what their qualifications might be, but of the qualities they had and how they approached their work'
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Comment
The NHS is far from 'saved'
I am astonished to see your comment piece claiming current policies have 'saved the NHS'. It certainly doesn't seem like it to me or any of my colleagues, and I wonder which planet the author has been on.
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Comment
Bed-blocking does not tell the full story
I read the article on bed-blocking with interest as my mother has been a patient in a foundation trust in the North West for nearly six months following a severe stoke.
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Comment
PBC needs to look at the big picture
In response to Simon Stevens' article on practice-based commissioning (opinion, page 17, 3 May), PBC has to be for all practices. If nothing else, PBC is about raising the eyes of GPs and practice management to understand the wider commissioning impact of their actions.
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Comment
Louis Appleby on reaching out to BME communities
'The term Positive Steps is an important one. The words and the actions coming from services must be positive. There is only so long that we can talk about the problem before talking about it gets in the way of tackling it.'
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Comment
1997 and all that: Blair remembered
The NHS has transformed remarkably since Tony Blair entered Number 10 in May 1997, reinvigorating a struggling monolith with record investment.
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Comment
Media Watch
'Don't play god' The Sun protested last week as it quoted campaigners warning that abortions 'will soar' if parents are allowed to use a 'revolutionary' home test that can reveal the sex of their baby at six weeks.
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Comment
David Nicholson on service transformation
'We can only deliver genuine transformation of health care services if our staff understand what we are trying to do'