The nature of our departures from our work often tells us much about what kind of problems are being left behind. The individual may escape, but what about the wider community? The continuing troubles and discontents of junior doctors have evident newsworthiness; not so the equivalent problems in later careers. This is easy to understand: […]
Category: NHS
Maslah Amin: How can the NHS tackle the white male dominance of leadership roles?
The lack of women and people from a black, Asian, or other ethnic minority (BME) background in senior NHS positions is well known. It is in and out of the news and you hear it discussed on the shop floor among colleagues. Yet it continues to persist. Researcher, Roger Kline’s 2014 survey of discrimination in […]
Rammya Mathew on the national childhood obesity strategy—doctors need to champion public health
I was left mortified after reading about the long awaited national childhood obesity strategy. “Underwhelming” would be the single best adjective to describe it. On reading the newspaper headlines, however, it is all too tempting to pass the buck to Public Health England and Dame Sally Davies et al. However, there is a sense of […]
Sara Martin on emotional labour
I work at a great place in the UK. We have gorgeous facilities, friendly staff, great benefits, and—most important to this American doctor—unlimited free coffee (and tea if you’re British). But this summer, I will be heading back to clinical medicine. In preparation, I have been thinking a lot about what I have mentally termed […]
Peter Thomson: Would revoking the European Working Time Directive improve surgical training?
The President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England suggested recently that leaving the EU will allow surgeons to undergo thousands of hours of extra training. Following the Brexit result, we are faced with the potential revoking of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD). The anti-EWTD-ers may now see their dreams come true, and […]
Tony Woolfson: How can we fill vacant consultant posts?
A Public Accounts Committee report suggested that the large number of unfilled consultant posts was due to bad workforce planning. Hardly surprising really. Obviously true, but not really the point. If we are to engage with and solve the problem, we need to look at what lies beneath. Having been involved with doctors’ careers since […]
Alex Scott-Samuel: Tory plans for NHS privatisation released during parliamentary recess
July 2016 saw the very quiet publication of two key documents charting the route to the privatisation of the NHS in England. Firstly, from NHS England, came Strengthening Financial Performance and Accountability in 2016-17. This is the latest set of instructions on the implementation of NHS chief executive Simon Stevens’s Five Year Forward View (5YFV). The 5YFV […]
Martin Kaminski: What I’ll miss about the NHS
As another first Wednesday in August approaches, I feel pensive and wistful that this year I won’t be spending changeover day in the heart of the National Health Service. Although you probably don’t hear it, I’m writing this in an American accent and am setting off for a spell to Boston, Massachusetts, where I grew […]
Helen McKenna: The consequences of living within your means
The technicality (or “administrative error” as the National Audit Office described it) that enabled the Department of Health to avoid breaching expenditure controls set by parliament may have spared it from the full wrath of the National Audit Office, MPs, and the Public Accounts Committee; but it did little to hide the bottom line—a serious […]
Samir Dawlatly: Who are the casualties of the battle against cancer?
The NHS is expected to find efficiency savings of £22 billion over the next four years or so. As well as implementing new structures and coping with the potential financial fallout from Britain’s exit from the EU, it is also expected to perform better in many sectors in terms of health outcomes. One such area […]