Earlier this week, I saw someone put up their New Year’s resolutions from last year (NYE 2013) on social media to evaluate what they had achieved. It was, in fact, rather a lot, and got me wondering how successful I am at staying committed to change. Now I’m as blindly optimistic as the next person when […]
Category: NHS
Ted Willis: Can the NHS meet the challenges of the next 20 years?
Expenditure on our health services in the UK has been rising consistently at around 4% per year in real terms for the last 30 years. It has doubled in real terms in just over 10 years. If this trend continues, this would mean us spending the real term equivalent of £230 billion in 2030, which would […]
Samir Dawlatly: How GP practices are funded—between a rock and a hard place
There are many uncertainties about the future of healthcare in the United Kingdom. This is largely because health is inherently political and, unfortunately, appears to be used by politicians to garner votes in forthcoming elections or gain points in opinion polls, without a great deal of thought being given to the consequences and feasibility of […]
Emma Spencelayh: To FT or not to FT—that is the question. Or is it?
As part of the Health Foundation’s work on analysing the controversial decision to prohibit the proposed merger of Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Bournemouth & Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, we’ve been grappling with what the role of foundation trusts really is in an ever changing system. […]
Samir Dawlatly: The ills of general practice
“Have a seat; sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Dr Dawlatly. What brings you here today Mrs, err, Practice?” “General,” she replied grumpily. “I’m sorry, what?” “General. That’s my title. I’ve risen through the ranks to General, so I would be grateful if you would address me properly, doctor,” she answered curtly. […]
Bev Fitzsimons: Supporting community providers to improve quality
If you look at how the NHS is represented in the media, healthcare dramas tend to equal hospital dramas: Casualty, Holby City, even the marvellous Getting on. Community services often feature as slightly misty eyed nostalgia of district nurses and midwives on bicycles—a bit of a blast from the past. Hospitals can sometimes be busy, […]
Jeffrey Aronson: Happy 50th birthday, Yellow Cards
To London, to celebrate 50 years of the Yellow Card scheme. The scheme, which was started by the erstwhile Committee on Safety of Drugs (CSD), and is now run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), allows health professionals and patients to report suspected adverse drug reactions to medicines, either manually, on a […]
Ben Gibbison: “Well, it’s the NHS . . . what do you expect?”
A few years ago, I was climbing in the Indian Himalaya. After driving to the road head, we walked for four days to our base camp. There, one of our group suffered with high altitude cerebral oedema. We carried her back down the valley for 12 hours until we reached the road head and found a […]
Nancy Devlin, John Appleby, David Parkin: Why has the PROMs programme stalled?
In 2009, the English NHS introduced a world leading initiative in the pursuit of quality healthcare: the measurement of patients’ views about their own health became a routine part of the delivery of NHS funded services. In an initiative led by the Department of Health, robust and reliable condition specific and generic (EQ-5D) patient reported […]
Zosia Kmietowicz: Why don’t hospitals share test results?
My sister nearly died of pneumonia earlier this year. Exceptional NHS care saved her life. But I have been left flummoxed by the lack of communication during her illness and in the subsequent months of her recovery between the hospitals involved in her treatment and rehabilitation. My sister has diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, and doctors […]