A frequent refrain is “we mustn’t recreate PCTs.” Increasingly, when I hear or see it said I want to ask five why’s. Let me give you an example. “We don’t want to recreate PCTs.” Why? “Because they were bureaucratic.” Why? “Because they made people jump through loads of hoops to get anything done.” Why? “Because […]
Category: NHS
Martin McShane: Integration
I was recently asked to give a brief talk on the role of a commissioner in integrated care. Chris Ham, Judith Smith, and Elizabeth Eastmure’s paper on this issue highlights the factors on which commissioners need to focus on to make a success of commissioning integrated care and some of the barriers currently in place. […]
Marge Berer: Independent abortion counselling? Whose problem?
Nadine Dorries MP is a very skilful politician. She decides there is a problem, for which she has absolutely no evidence. She not only manages to get her problem on to the front pages of the newspapers but also on to the agenda of the House of Commons. Having spoken to her about it, the […]
Martin McShane: Stock take
I am not sure whether this time last year anyone could have predicted what massive changes would have been wrought across commissioning in England – and not a single piece of legislation has been passed. We are moving from a dispersed form of governance, PCTs each with their own boards, with executive and non-executive directors, to a […]
Martin McShane: Mirror on the wall
Someone I know, who is not a health care professional but has dedicated most of their working life to supporting improvements in health and health care, recently shared with me their observations about general practice. Rather than focussing on poor performance they studied the good to find out what it was that made them different. […]
Jo Maybin: Do actions speak louder than words on competition?
“What we are doing, through amendments to the legislation, is to make it absolutely clear that integration around the needs of the patient trumps other issues, including the application of competition rules.” […]
Martin McShane: Nietzsche and commissioning
As part of the development of our Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) the seven GP CCG chairs now have a place at the NHS Lincolnshire Board meetings. The agenda was not particularly unusual. We were required to approve the Equality and Diversity Strategy. We had a couple of papers dealing with our legacy document and the […]
Polly Stoker on Threads and Yarns – personal accounts of health and wellbeing
Senior citizens and first year textile undergraduates getting together to make material flowers is not something that you would associate with the BMJ. Much more Craft magazine, surely? This was certainly my first thought when told to cover the V&A’s one day, “Threads and Yarns” exhibition. But after looking at the brief, (and being a […]
Martin McShane: Thought for the day
I enjoy Rabbi Lionel Blue’s thought for the day and one I caught recently seemed pertinent to the turmoil which the NHS is going through. He started his talk with, “Monday it’s kidneys, Tuesday heart, Thursday joints, and Friday blood and brains.” It wasn’t a recipe, he said, but the hospital appointments in his diary […]
Jacqui Young: NHS celebrates progress in heart and stroke services in England
A conference held in London this week, titled “Celebrating clinical leadership in heart and stroke care,” looked at what has been achieved over the past decade in heart and stroke services under the leadership of Roger Boyle, who retires this month after 10 years as England’s national director for heart disease and stroke. […]