Following the recent Health and Social Care Act, which profoundly changes the structure of the NHS in England, one of the concerns that persists is the potential fragmentation of services and the impact of this fragmentation on patient pathways and care. Under the old system, each Primary Care Trust had the clearly defined responsibility of […]
Category: NHS
Martin McShane: Walk the talk
Sometimes, it becomes apparent that what we have been talking about for so long is actually beginning to happen. Over the last few weeks we have been preparing for our Annual Accountability Review with the SHA. We have had our monthly cluster board meeting. We also had a meeting with the acute trust, looking at […]
Tom Nolan: Industrial action – winners and losers
The dust has settled following last week’s industrial action on pensions. Online forums, Twitter, and blogs have been alight with doctors giving their views—who do they feel have been the winners and losers? […]
NHS pension strike—we are preparing to make a stand
We are planning to take industrial action at our GP surgery. We’re unanimous about the blatant inequity being thrust down our throats by Mr Lansley and the anger we feel is palpable. We weren’t completely in agreement about what we’d be prepared to do about it—but when the date was announced, we realised that the […]
Peter Bailey: Striking for a duck island
A few days ago I was asked by a local radio station to give an opinion about the strike action being planned by the medical profession over pensions. I told them that in view of the fact that I was already retired and drawing my pension, I was perhaps hors de combat and should leave […]
Martin McShane: Letting go
One aspect of my job that I have enjoyed over the last few years has been engaging with the public. It has never been dull. When I first arrived in Lincolnshire we did a lot of work, talking with the public and professionals about the principles we should use for commissioning services. This became a […]
Edward Davies: Call for the spin doctor—this pension strike will need the mother of all PR campaigns
This strike is not going down well. Or to quote the Daily Telegraph, this “unseemly spectacle” is not going down well. And it’s not just the Telegraph. “There is no gold left and the doctors need to recognise that this applies to them,” says The Times. “Doctors should be ashamed of themselves,” says the Independent. […]
Rhys Davies: 21 June—is there a medical student in the house?
Yesterday, the BMA announced the results of its members’ ballot on industrial action. Tens of thousands of doctors across different branches of medicine responded, coming out strongly in favour of industrial action. With a mandate to move forward, the BMA have scheduled a day of industrial action on 21 June. Doctors will perform only urgent […]
David Zigmond: Further NHS reforms – inevitable and unintended consequences
As the debate becomes more fraught, I want to add my voice to the fray. I have been a frontline medical practitioner for more than 40 years, and have seen recurrent waves of reform and their very mixed results. The least disputable advances are in the realms of technology and technical competence: drugs and procedures […]
Grant Hill-Cawthorne: House of Lords to be a mini House of Commons – would the Health and Social Care Bill have passed unamended?
Reform of the the House of Lords has been rumbling along for many years. Started by Tony Blair’s Labour Government, it was in the manifesto of all three main parties during the last general election, and it formed a lynchpin of the coalition arrangement between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. Nick Clegg is personally […]