The Department of Health have recently launched a consultation to look at whether doctors should be forced to work in the NHS for at least five years after completing their training in England. The consultation is looking at whether it may improve the retention of trainees and therefore improve workforce numbers. It appears from the language used in […]
Recent figures revealed that NHS providers have a deficit of nearly £900 million for the first three quarters of 2016/17—a clear sign that NHS organisations are struggling in the face of constrained budgets and growing demand. At the same time, key performance data show that hospital performance, in some areas, is slipping. As NHS organisations seek […]
“Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long-run it is almost everything.” So said Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, and not many economists would disagree. Productivity powers economic growth and funds better public services. Over the last 40 years real income per head has more than doubled while average hours worked have fallen. Productivity […]
A new report from Health Education England details plans to tackle the junior doctors’ morale crisis. Two FY2’s argue why change is urgently needed. […]
Ingeborg Welters discusses why many EU doctors are considering leaving the NHS as a result of Brexit […]
On 4 October 2016, England’s health secretary, Jeremy Hunt announced government funding for 1500 additional undergraduate medical school places starting in September 2018. Although medical schools were anticipating the need to expand numbers, the timing of the announcement took us by surprise and perhaps Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and Health Education England (HEE) […]
The arguments to leave the Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) have a familiar ring to them: it’s so big it can’t reform; we need to take back control; we should stop wasting money on bureaucracy and fund the NHS instead; what do the so called experts know about real life? These seem to be working just as […]
MPs voted this week to introduce a bill to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales. The Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill, proposed by a cross-party body of MPs, seeks to repeal legislation that dates back to Victorian times. The bill in question aims to amend two sections of the 1861 Offences Against the Person […]
John Appleby unpicks the good news and the bad news for the NHS and social care from the 2017 spring budget […]
In January 2017, Keith Pearson, chair of the GMC’s own Revalidation Advisory Board, delivered a review into the future of revalidation. For many of us, anxious for some crumbs of reassurance that this burdensome ritual would be reformed, this was a deeply depressing document. There are over 50 responses on the GMC website, almost unanimous […]