This week, junior doctors in England will be undertaking a full withdrawal of labour between the hours of 8am and 5pm on Tuesday 26 and Wednesday 27 April, as the ongoing industrial dispute between the BMA and the government shows no sign of ending peacefully. This latest action marks an escalation from previous strikes this year as […]
Category: NHS
Chris Ham: Statesmanship among medical leaders could help resolve the junior doctors’ dispute
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the standoff between the government and junior doctors, failure to reach agreement on a new contract is bad for patients and for staff. The all out strike planned for the end of the month will cause disruption and delay for patients, and add to the pressures on staff who […]
Jennifer Stein: To Rio or not to Rio—that is the question
Shakespeare’s question about being springs to mind when as doctors we are faced with change. Do we “take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?” That is, of course, if we are able to do this. Rio is now a relatively common, though not ubiquitous, NHS IT replacement to medical notes, […]
Are safety measures really the answer to spiralling clinical negligence costs?
Aviation, rail, and oil and gas industries pride themselves, for good reason, on their safety records and associated culture. And a logical extension of the success of those industries is to apply similar approaches to medicine, with the aim of reducing risk. Instinctively, that makes sense—make medicine safer and there will be fewer errors, saving […]
Claudia Pagliari et al: Smartening-up NHS workforce management with IT
Media revelations of dramatic unexpected shortages in NHS nursing capacity, excessive dependence on overseas recruitment and costly agency staff (often NHS workers doing private shifts) are contributing to the public perception of a health service that doesn’t know how to effectively plan and manage its workforce. […]
David Oliver: An ideal minister?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about MPs doubling as ministers of state politically responsible for key public services. What are the characteristics of a good or bad one? I’ll start by saying upfront that while I understand the need for democratic accountability and oversight for large amounts of public money, even the system we […]
What are the consequences of recent caps on NHS agency staff spending?
Four months since the first caps on agency spending were introduced by NHS Improvement—and after new framework agreements came into force last week—what do we know about the impact of these measures so far? Unfortunately, not a huge amount. Although NHS providers are submitting weekly data returns to NHS Improvement, no official figures have yet been published. Without […]
Richard Smith: Is the NHS finally going to start taking patient safety seriously?
Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state for health, is embroiled in battles with junior doctors, GPs, and consultants over contracts and patient safety. He thinks that he will improve safety by reducing excess weekend deaths. The doctors think that he’s endangering patient safety through obliging them to work unsafely. Ironically, he’s the first secretary of state […]
Mags Portman: The PrEP debate gains momentum
This blog was originally written for BMJ Clinical Evidence and posted on blogs.bmj.com/ce/ Last week saw a landmark shift in the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV debate in England. After 18 months of work with key stakeholders—including clinicians, commissioners, and community advocates—NHS England announced that it was no longer able to fund a significant PrEP rollout; the outcome […]
Arthy Santhakumar: Taking stock—Exposing the multi-billion pound medical gloves industry
Tops, frocks, bananas, and coffee—these are likely to be your top answers when asked to think of “fair trade.” Historically, the fashion industry and agriculture sector have claimed the top spots for industries most likely to violate workers’ rights. But is it time we applied the same scrutiny to the healthcare industry and promoted the […]