All Government/DH policy articles – Page 165
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Comment
Ben Bridgewater on why funding clinical audit is essential
Observing clinical outcomes and ensuring they enrich the NHS’s wealth of data is essential so audit must be fully backed by national funding, leadership and IT
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News
Ministers were warned ahead of Mid Staffordshire approval
Ministers and officials were warned Mid Staffordshire had a precarious business model and had breached its MRSA target by two thirds just eight months before it was authorised as a foundation trust.
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News
Monitor accuses DH of undermining FT independence
Foundation trusts and Monitor have warned that the details of the government’s plans to de-authorise foundations risk “undermining” the trusts and their regulator.
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Comment
How to ensure choice in maternity services
If the government’s pledge, laid down in Maternity Matters, that all women in England should have the choice of a home birth by the end of 2009 is to be met, every maternity service should be discussing home birth with every woman.
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News
Calls to suspend working time directive to cope with swine flu pressures
Campaigners have called on the government to suspend EU rules that limit doctors to working 48 hours a week in a bid to cope with the mounting pressure on the NHS caused by swine flu.
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News
£25m apprenticeships boost for NHS
Strategic health authorities are to get a £25m boost to offer young people and others NHS apprenticeships.
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News
Private patients 'have full NHS rights'
Private patients have full rights to NHS critical care treatment if required, according to a newly ratified protocol.
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News
Resigning trust chair calls for David Nicholson to investigate 'SHA pressure'
The chair of an acute trust has resigned, calling on NHS chief executive David Nicholson to investigate the behaviour of East Midlands strategic health authority in pressurising him to meet access targets.
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News
Ministers deny swine flu website was late starter
A claim that the new swine flu helpline and website should have been launched earlier has been dismissed by ministers.
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News
Sainsbury's refuses to act as antiviral collection point
Primary care trusts will not be able to include any of Sainsbury’s 230 in-store pharmacies in their local plans to set up antiviral collection points.
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HSJ Knowledge
The tension between religion and healthcare
When the religious beliefs of an NHS employee run contrary to trust policy, the result is often headline grabbing conflict. Louise Hunt looks at a modern day dilemma
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News
Pressure on to sign up to flu service
Pressure is mounting on the Welsh Assembly to join the Department of Health’s national pandemic flu service as thousands of people report symptoms of swine flu.
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News
Swine flu phone service goes live
A telephone and internet service that aims to speed up access to drugs for thousands of people infected with swine flu goes live today.
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Comment
Michael White on the future of healthcare funding
For a politician in his situation, care services minister Phil Hope was in a remarkably cheerful mood when I caught up with him to find out how well - or badly - his department’s latest green paper had been received.
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News
Ministers to exert power over Monitor
Health secretary Andy Burnham plans to change the law so ministers can instruct foundation trust regulator Monitor to intervene where organisations are failing.
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News
New Horizons policy direction lauded despite missing details
An “aspirational” strategy setting out the next 10 years of mental health policy has been welcomed despite a lack of detail on how it will be achieved.
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News
Cost of NHS growth revealed
Government spending on public services such as education will need to be cut by as much as 4.5 per cent a year if politicians’ promises to give the NHS real terms growth are met.
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Comment
Paul Corrigan on commissioning strategy plans
Nearly all primary care trust commissioning strategy plans describe a rationale for their intentions over the next five years. Tailored to the health and healthcare needs of their population, they describe future actions which intend to move activity out of secondary care, and cut emergency admissions and attendance at A&E.
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News
Department of Health has improved but its vision lacks ‘coherence’
The Department of Health has improved the quality of its leadership over the past two years, a Cabinet Office review has found.
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Comment
Stephen Eames on the need to make changes
Sunday morning and it looks as if it is going to be a hot day - a precursor to a long hot summer dominated by organising surge plans to combat pandemic flu, while digesting the impact of another central initiative on quality, innovation, improvement and productivity, otherwise known as “QIPP”.