Primary Care – Page 224
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Comment
Paul Jennings on the commissioner-provider split
It is just over two years since we began separating the commissioning and provider arms in Walsall teaching primary care trust.
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HSJ Knowledge
Patient involvement: parlez-vous health?
Willingness to learn a few foreign phrases is helping a PCT get closer to its minority communities. Lynne Greenwood reports
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Comment
Andrew Jones on achieving quality care
Piloting the NHS towards quality requires robust regulation and inspection, and the DH has already set up overlapping organisations to provide this, presumably with a thinly spread budget. But if Lord Darzi's plan is to be accomplished, it will require action rather than rhetoric, and action requires funding.
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HSJ Knowledge
NICE awards promote shared learning
With the next stage review promoting quality over cost, now is the time to develop better ways of sharing best practice. As the closing date for the annual NICE awards nears, HSJ talks to last year's winners
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HSJ Knowledge
Measure the mix of interventions
All primary care trusts must become world class by commissioning services that 'add life to years and years to life' and specifying the outcomes to be delivered.
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News
BMA presses Hart over primary care funding
Welsh health minister Edwina Hart has been urged to ensure primary care is protected as the structure of the NHS in the country is reformed.
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News
Probe calls for tariff for fertility services
A Department of Health group probing inequalities in IVF provision is demanding a national tariff for fertility services.
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News
Huge contrasts found between UK nations
Patients in the UK’s four nations have dramatically different experiences of the NHS, HSJ can reveal.
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News
Surrey is first to agree its integrated care proposals
The first primary care trust to unveil its plans for an integrated care pilot has warned that commissioners will have to overcome existing 'anomalies' to make the initiative work.
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News
Health gap between rich and poor areas narrows
The quality and outcomes framework has reduced the link between low-income areas and poor primary healthcare, a study suggests.
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News
PCTs fight for local decision making on controversial drugs
Primary care trusts must retain their right to decide whether patients receive controversial drugs in exceptional circumstances, PCT leaders have warned.
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Comment
NICE chairman hits back at critics
Some recent criticisms of NICE's work ignore the realities of modern healthcare and misrepresent the facts. Institute chairman Sir Michael Rawlins sets the record straight
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Comment
Stephen Ramsden on minding your language
In a column last year I described the power of storytelling. Compelling stories touch hearts and minds in a way that logic and reason do not.
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Comment
David Peat on hitting targets
You know how it feels when you hit the target but miss the point?Well, a recent journey to address a health conference in Europe was, to my mind, the perfect example of this.
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Leader
Young promises new regime will deliver speed and independence
The language used by the chair of the Care Quality Commission in her interview with HSJ was typically clear, robust and ambitious.
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News
PCTs suspect trusts may be allowing top ups
Primary care trusts have received few requests from patients wishing to 'top up' their care but are concerned that hospitals are doing so without their permission.
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News
Spring surge in GP referrals leaves managers mystified
Referrals by GPs shot up in spring - putting extra pressure on trusts battling with December's 18-week referral to treatment target.
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News
Sophia Christie on the Naomi Campbell effect
At a recent House of Commons gathering to discuss the role of commissioning in delivering improvement, there was silence on the application of world class standards to the commissioning of primary care.
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News
Urgent call target triggers cash crisis
Ambulance trusts are warning of financial problems caused by efforts to meet a target for response times to life-threatening emergency calls.
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News
PCT 'dragons' hunt fresh ideas
Primary care trusts are attempting to spice up public health and recruitment initiatives by copying popular TV programmes.