All articles by Michael White – Page 16
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CommentMichael White on US healthcare and NHS politics
Oh dear. Turn your back on the politicians for a few days’ holiday and when you get back they’re engaged in all-too-familiar pre-election skirmishing about the NHS being safe in our hands - but not in the other lot’s.
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CommentMichael White on a holiday from the NHS
Are you thinking of driving far on the summer holiday this year? I drive across France every August, a round trip of about 1,500 miles.
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CommentMichael White on swine flu and summer holidays
August has arrived so I delved into my health archive looking for a holiday subject. Straight away I stumbled on the House of Lords science and technology committee, chaired by the redoubtable Stewart Sutherland.
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CommentMichael White: The Tories don't have it in the bag yet
Are we any the wiser about a future Conservative government’s intentions towards the NHS? I think we are and, being determined to ignore those two great 2009 panics, piggy flu and Labour leadership flu, I plan to focus on those here.
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CommentMichael 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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CommentMichael White on swine flu and infectious attitudes
There comes a time when even a “keep calm” column has to acknowledge that Britain seems to be edging towards a swine flu pandemic. Alas, there is no antiviral to protect more vulnerable groups like politicians from exhibiting alarming symptoms.
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CommentMichael White: on patient safety and savvy spending
I had an odd experience at the weekend. Reading the Commons health select committee’s depressing report on patient safety, I kept thinking of the more visible drama now being played out over public expenditure and pay.
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CommentMichael White: What happened to the government's Health Bill?
Have we lost track of the government’s Health Bill, which has turned out to be not the promised “flagship” piece of legislation but a “rather small” boat, as Andrew Lansley joked during its Commons second reading?
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CommentMichael White on Andy Burnham's rise through the ranks
Well, well. What a turbulent week for health politics and it is not over yet. By the time you read this, a day or so after I have typed it, Alan Johnson may still be the new home secretary.
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Michael White on the big split over ISTCs
Andrew Lansley has been out and about attacking Alan Johnson’s record as a failed health secretary (“the postman who hasn’t delivered”) on the grounds he has not closed the health gap between rich and poor - and also let the NHS’s Blairite choice agenda atrophy.
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CommentMichael White on the patient-consumer parallel
It is always good to hear the NHS’s top brass trumpeting the service’s virtues, as NHS chief executive David Nicholson did when launching his third annual report. At least his list of modest triumphs serves to counteract some of the negativity generated by more regular reports of NHS failures in ...
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CommentMichael White: a search for good news in the NHS
With the expenses scandal delivering the most humiliating week for Westminster politics that I can remember in 30 years this column is committed to finding something more cheerful to write about MPs today.
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CommentMichael White on integrity and whistleblowing
Amid the uproar over the MPs’ expenses scandal three prime ministers addressed health issues this past week. I refer, of course, to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Alan Johnson, who is also now tipped (improbably) to succeed Alistair Darling in Number 11.
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CommentMichael White on swine flu and leadership
This column’s established policy is not to panic over either swine flu or Labour leadership flu. Outbreaks of both occur from time to time and are easily spread by modern life, notably by air travel and 24-hour TV news channels. The authorities do their best.
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CommentMichael White on the Budget
Not a good Easter break for the extended White family. Between us we suffered a car crash, an emergency caesarian and a burglary.
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CommentMichael White: 'You rarely read about the kindness'
Unlucky Alan Johnson popped up in the prime time 8.10 spot during the bank holiday Monday edition of the Today programme to protest Number 10’s inherent decency in the wake of Damian “email” McBride’s resignation.
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CommentMichael White on the recent political populism
Watch out for political populism in troubled times. Most of us have been indulging in banker-bashing, but such enjoyably bad habits can be contagious and beneficial chiefly to extremists on the prowl. I spotted two crowd-pleasers that affect HSJ readers only this weekend.
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CommentMichael White on the effect of unemployment on health
A flurry of excitement hit the Commons press gallery when it was rumoured health minister Ben Bradshaw had said unemployment would be good for British men.
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CommentMichael White on NHS bad news
Oh dear, it is barely a week since I wrote elsewhere that everyone knows “the NHS is much better” nowadays. Since then there has been a steady trickle of bad news, from Mid Staffs trust and from Birmingham children’s hospital, and poor cancer mortality outcomes.
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Michael White on health inequalities
Late Sunday afternoon I made myself comfortable to read the latest Commons select committee report on health inequalities before cooking our planned supper of grilled fish and greens.