We’ve been having this conversation since at least 1945, said a member of the audience at this week’s Cambridge Health Network meeting on partnerships between the NHS and the private sector. The dominant rhetoric now is that partnership between the NHS and the private sector will be essential for improving health and generating wealth for […]
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Gerry Robinson tells us that “fixing the NHS is straightforward.” He writes with optimistic alacrity of pragmatic, logistical, data-fuelled managerial devices to sharpen purview and performance. He cites management in McDonalds and Phones4U as good role models for healthcare. He conveys this as if it is bold and […]
The main focus of the recent Francis report has been on the implications it has on the clinical and economic management of the NHS, but there are many lessons that can be applied to all levels of hospital hierarchy. Patient centred care is championed across healthcare, and nowhere as much as in complex care wards […]
NHS competition is back in the headlines, apparently the subject of more tension within the coalition: “Lib Dem pressure forces Hunt to rewrite NHS regulations,” and “New rules on competition to be scrapped.” The background to this is interesting. The Section 75 regulations published earlier this month—which are ostensibly intended to “ensure good procurement practice”—follow […]
How could they have behaved like that? It’s inhuman! Reading the Francis report, I was appalled and shamed by the neglect and lack of care to which patients in the Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust were subjected. Remembering though, that this was human behaviour, prompted me to wonder at the circumstances that are necessary for so […]
All the political parties and those at the top of the NHS see an important role for entrepreneurs in the latest version of the health service. Those labouring within the service are less convinced, and entrepreneurs have great difficulty finding any customers. The NHS Commissioning Board (or CB, as we are learning to call it) […]
In January the government announced the establishment of a new service that will be operational in 2014. While this news seems to have gone under the radar so far, I’m confident that every GP in the country will be referring people to this service every week. The new service is an Independent Assessment and Advisory […]
The recommendations of the Francis Inquiry cannot simply be implemented. It is a complicated set of proposals that will create new difficulties and challenges for the medical profession. Doctors need to lead the debate on what happens next. Robert Francis’s lawyerly circumlocution, filling almost 1,800 pages, guarantees that virtually nobody will read the whole report. […]
With little media attention, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has proposed scrapping clinical commissioning as part of a new round of NHS upheaval if Labour is returned to office. In a speech at the King’s Fund recently, Burnham tried to portray his ideas as a mere reshuffling of the structures that will be in place […]
Cognisant of the short time that ministers are in post, Jeremy Hunt, decided when he became Secretary of State of Health, that to make a difference he should have only four priorities. They are, he told the Cambridge Health Network on Wednesday night, improving the quality of care, putting dementia higher on the agenda, reducing […]