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. […]
Tag: NHS
David Pencheon: Future-proof hospitals? Go straight for future-proof systems…
Chris Ham’s article in last week’s Observer newspaper (“Politicians have ducked hard decisions on the NHS for far too long” Sunday 19 June 2011), and a news story in this week’s BMJ (BMJ 2011;342:d3921), claim that up to 20 hospitals, around 10% of the total in England, may not be financially sustainable. This is highly probable […]
Martin McShane: A tale of two citizens?
Four years ago I participated in scenario planning. The document that emerged is as relevant today as it was then – perhaps because it was looking “Over the Horizon,” taking a ten year view and considering plausible alternative futures for health care. We envisaged four scenarios: Fools Gold, Swimming Upstream, Red Arrows, and A Tale […]
David Kerr: The new prohibition
The NHS and technology have had a quixotic sort of relationship recently. A current source of collective angst for the NHS is what to do about social networking? The behemoth of this new genre in communication is Facebook. Facebook and its micro blogging counterpart, Twitter, have even been implicated as major contributors to the recent so-called […]
Douglas Noble on reforming the reforms
The pause ended in dramatic fashion last week with the publication of the NHS Future Forum’s recommendations. Most interesting was the orthopaedic surgeon at Guys Hospital who confronted the prime minster and deputy prime minister in a rage because the camera crew were not suitably dressed for a hospital. It hit home on all sorts […]
Peter Davies: Is it time to scrap the primary-secondary care divide?
Suppose a pathologist was to say, “Because I am not a GP I do not belong here.” Or a GP was to say, “Because I am not a cardio-thoracic surgeon I do not belong here.” No, (paraphrasing St Paul) we are all parts of one body of medical enterprise, and the patients need different doctors […]
Martin McShane: No rules
I read the King’s fund paper on management in the NHS. It should be read widely. Some politicians and professionals understand that successful organisations have good management. Some even understand that bureaucracy is a product of a set of rules. A bureaucrat can’t be a bureaucrat without those rules. The rules I have to work […]
Annabel Ferriman: What a way to decide the future of the NHS
Suddenly Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s proposals to “reform” the NHS look safe. For more than nine months, since the publication of Liberating the NHS last July, doctors, nurses, think tanks, and academics have been begging Lansley to re-think his ideas. By the start of the “pause” in April, it looked as though the government would […]
Martin McShane: Multilayered commissioning
I walked into a room recently which was jam packed with secondary care clinicians and managers. I was the lone commissioner. The meeting was a peer review visit to support the development and improvement of vascular services. I recognised the chair. We had both sat together in an ante room awaiting interviews for a senior […]
Martin McShane: The calm
As a child I remember standing on a beach and marvelling at how unnaturally still and calm everything seemed. It was a few hours before a hurricane hit the coast. The financial year has been accounted for – literally. The finance team worked seven day weeks to complete all the work that was necessary and […]