All Leader articles – Page 23
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Leader
The coalition’s honeymoon is in danger of being called off
Momentum is a priceless asset in public sector reform. New governments tend to have momentum - commonly called “the honeymoon period.”
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Leader
The NHS has too many hospitals - something’s got to give
Bristol, Alder Hey, Mid Staffordshire; some hospital trusts are forever synonymous with failures which shone a light on problems found throughout the NHS. Could South London Healthcare Trust and Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals Foundation Trust be about to join them?
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Leader
Lansley acknowledges lack of readiness for GP commissioning
GPs need to significantly overhaul their skill sets before they embrace commissioning.
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Leader
The hurricane of protest over NHS pay can be calmed by honest debate
How much, in this age of austerity, should NHS staff or contractors be paid? Using the number of comments on HSJ’s website as a guide, no subject is of greater interest or importance.
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Leader
Conflicting messages from the top hint at growing resistance
Have the tone of messages from the NHS chief executive and health secretary ever been as different as those emerging from Sir David Nicholson and Andrew Lansley? At last week’s health questions in the House of Commons, ministers got stuck into “pen pushers”. Contrast this language with Sir David’s latest ...
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Leader
It’s not just commissioning – who will fill the PCT vacuum?
Margaret Angier had news for the readers of the Sheffield Telegraph. The chair of a local mental health group, Ms Angier wrote to the paper about the government’s health reforms.
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Leader
The health community remains doubtful of Cameron’s big idea
Does the “big society” have any relevance to the future of the NHS?
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Leader
NHS spending debate focuses on the wrong type of consultant
Why is health secretary Andrew Lansley still acting like an opposition politician? That is the question raised by the government’s haranguing of primary care trusts for their use of management consultants.
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Leader
The accountability of overspending GPs
The British Medical Association has declared GP consortia must be “democratically accountable” to practices. And they “should act with integrity and leadership when considering the accountability of practices”.
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Leader
Alarm bells sound as financial scrutiny falls victim to the cuts
Amid the sound and fury surrounding the abolition of the Audit Commission there was little comment on how it would affect the NHS.
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Leader
Help shape the 2010 Hospital Guide
The history of Dr Foster’s Hospital Guide is a microcosm of the last decade’s debate over healthcare quality.
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Leader
World class commissioning: this ridiculed plan might just be working
World class commissioning arrived too late and burdened with a name that virtually guaranteed ridicule. But, unfashionable though it may be to say, it is beginning to deliver results.
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Leader
Under the radar guidance ends hospital closure moratorium
The revised guidance on hospital reconfiguration was slipped out last week at the height of the summer holiday period.
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Leader
Free NHS Choices to meet public need
The internet’s unequalled capacity to inform and communicate with the public should have been comprehensively exploited by the NHS.
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Leader
There is no time to waste as GPs grasp the scale of the challenge
If primary care trust managers, GPs or indeed anyone else thought the consultation document on commissioning accompanying the white paper would answer most of their questions about the new policy, they have now been disabused.
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Leader
‘Heroic’ NHS managers get their due from friend and foe
“Heroic” is not a word often used to describe NHS managers, so well done to NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson for praising the individual efforts of primary care trust and strategic health authority leaders.
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Leader
Managers have been unfairly served by the rushed reforms
“In the crucial area of public service reform, we have found that Liberal Democrat and Conservative ideas are stronger combined… You have a united vision for the NHS that is truly radical: GPs with authority over commissioning… elections for your local NHS health board.”
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Leader
Clarity is the key to tackling excess admissions
Penalties for trusts doing too many emergency admissions, introduced in April, do not appear to have brought the numbers down.
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Leader
Clinical engagement is about more than GPs
At last week’s NHS Confederation conference, health secretary Andrew Lansley stressed the need for managers to engage with GPs, while batting away the question of how Treasury officials feel about giving them control of the commissioning purse strings - a question that is not going to go away.