All Policy articles – Page 215
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News
City shockwaves threaten NHS budget
Economists are warning this week's£38bn rescue plan for UK banks creates a "structural hole" in public finances that will make NHS funding cuts and claw-backs inevitable.The government has insisted the bank bail-out will not affect public finances. A senior Treasury source said there were no plans to revisit the commitments ...
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Comment
Media Watch: binge drinking
Unlike so much else in the past seven days, the value of a drink is on the way up. The Department of Health's next attempt to reduce binge drinking will include curbs on free samples and happy hours, according to press reports.
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News
Trusts expect tight pinch from 2010
Real terms cuts expected to payment by results tariffTough road ahead for aspirant foundationsQuery over future of capital investmentStaff costs may fall in real terms
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Comment
NHS spending - what does the future hold?
As the economic picture worsens, Carl Emmerson and Gemma Tetlow examine the possible implications for the NHS budget
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Comment
Ciaran Devane on surviving cancer
The latest buzzword in cancer care is 'survivorship' - a word that has caused a bit of controversy since it was first used in the cancer reform strategy to describe the rapidly growing number of people living with or beyond cancer.
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Comment
David Allen on letting the public shape the NHS
The government has published another NHS white paper in which politicians tell the public what sort of health service we must receive. It is time this changed.
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News
NHS Employers calls for 2 per cent pay rises
NHS Employers has called for pay rises in 2009 for NHS doctors and dentists to be limited to 2 per cent.In evidence to the doctors' and dentists' review body, it argues a balance has to be struck between fairness to staff and affordability.
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News
DH survey reveals slow progress on patient choice
Results from the Department of Health's patient choice survey have revealed slow progress in increasing choice.The proportion of patients who recalled being offered a choice of hospital for their first outpatient appointment was 45 per cent in May, down from 47 per cent in March but up from 30 per ...
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HSJ Knowledge
Publishing death rates: no dead certainties?
There has been a degree of disquiet about publishing mortality rates. Supporters hoped this would lead to greater transparency, quality and patient choice - but has reality matched expectations? Daloni Carlisle reports
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Comment
Michael White on the NHS and political miscalculations
With the global banking network near meltdown, we're all on a sharp learning curve. So here's a tip for David Cameron: don't use the distress of NHS patients such as the late Elizabeth Woods to make party-political points.
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News
NHS could be sued under free market
Plans to create a European Union free market in public healthcare could open the health service to legal challenges from patients demanding treatments that are not available in the UK.
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News
Political fear frustrates local socialism
It is clear from discussions at the Labour Party conference that ministers are not willing to commit in any meaningful way to accountability to patients and the public. They feel that patient and public involvement will result in a postcode lottery followed by assassination by the press.
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Leader
Edwina Hart's new system has a whiff of Stalinism
Just as the government’s fingers are finally being prised off the throat of the NHS in England, Welsh health minister Edwina Hart has put her own service in a stranglehold.
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Comment
Jon Restell on party conferences
The party conference season heralds the least productive element of my job. Attending them means - roughly - receptions, speaking at fringes, talking to anyone who will listen and eating too much and too richly.
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News
Edwina Hart takes charge in Wales
Under plans announced last week, Welsh health minister Edwina Hart is to take direct control of the country's NHS. Dave West asks if a politician can be trusted with such a sensitive job
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News
PCTs call for continuing care help
Strategic health authorities are having to rescue primary care trusts flooded with 'continuing care' cases, a year after the government made it easier for service users to claim NHS funding.
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HSJ Knowledge
GMC must nip rotten medics in the bud
The General Medical Council has stood for high professionalism for 150 years but exposures of malpractice suggest it must push on with its modernisation to regain public and professional confidence
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News
Phil Hope gets beefed-up DH social care portfolio
The profile of social care has been given a potential boost with the appointment of Phil Hope as a minister of state for care services in the Department of Health.
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News
Andrew Lansley points finger at ministers over patient safety
Too much blame is being placed on trust boards for patient safety incidents, due to the erosion of parliamentary accountability, according to the shadow health secretary.
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News
Foundation trusts get £300m in a year-end spending rush
Foundation trusts were handed up to £300m in advance payments by primary care trusts towards the end of the last financial year, HSJ has been told. The prepayments were made as some primary care trusts struggled to keep 2007-08 surpluses below 'control totals' set by the Department of Health.