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Health Service Journal
1998-05-14

View all stories from this issue.

  • All our Yesterdays

    14 May 1948

  • All quiet on the front line

    Managers believe performance indicators have some - limited - value. But junior doctors and other frontline staff are often ignorant of their existence. Maria Goddard and colleagues report on a study of eight hospitals

  • ALL TOGETHER NOW... 'YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT 'TIL IT'S GONE'

    The letter from Carole Rawlinson and John Kelly (30 April) advising NHS managers to hold their horses on closures of community hospitals should have received star billing. The logic of their research-based argument is impeccable.

  • Appeal Court clarifies fixed-term contracts

    The Court of Appeal has cleared up confusion over fixed-term contracts, though the case, Kelly-Phillips v the BBC, is likely to go to the House of Lords.

  • Ashworth managers 'retreat' over shift patterns

    Managers at the troubled Ashworth top-security hospital are set to reverse unpopular working patterns, union officials claimed this week.

  • Bona Lisa:

    Bona Lisa: one of the 20 images on show at the Wellcome Trust's Two10 gallery in the sixth of a series of exhibitions 'exploring the relationship between contemporary medical science and art'. This picture shows a 2.8mm sample of bone from an 89-year-old woman with osteoporosis.The biomedical image awards - displays from the trust's medical photographic library - can be seen at 210 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE until 31 July. Admission is free.

  • Career file

    Name: Jackie Ford

  • Cause for complaint

    'This year's report makes depressing reading: not only is the volume of complaints rising inexorably - not in itself a bad thing - but the ability of the NHS to deal with them seems not to improve'

  • CHANGE MUST COME, AND THE SOONER THE BETTER

    The merger of acute and community trusts, the closure of 'cottage hospitals', the rights of healthcare 'consumers', and fears about primary care groups going the way of US managed care are all very closely linked to the thorny issue of accountability within the system for the integrated delivery of a focused service - what, to whom, and where? (News Focus, page 13, 9 April).

  • CHCs attack bids to remove chairs

    Community health council leaders are calling for a review of rules amid fears that health officials are seeking to oust effective CHC chairs.

  • Consent ruling on Caesarians

    A long-awaited ruling last Thursday by the Court of Appeal will stem the tide of NHS trusts making pleas to the High Court to sanction emergency Caesareans on women who refuse consent.

  • Council of optimism

    Social workers are long overdue for regulation by a statutory body. But, as Lynn Eaton reports, care workers in residential and nursing homes may still slip through the net

  • Doctors' orders?

    Few organisations of standing within the NHS would have the brass neck to issue ultimatums to government. And perhaps only one would do so in near complete self-confidence that its two-week deadline would be met. Step forward the British Medical Association (see News, page 7).

  • Doubts cast on dramatic fall in hospital deaths

    Hospital deaths and emergency admissions have fallen dramatically at trusts taking part in a programme to tackle poor clinical outcomes.

  • Fair shares for all

    The New NHS white paper and the recently published green paper, Our Healthier Nation, both place a heavy responsibility on health authorities to develop a public health strategy focused on multi-agency working. How to tackle poverty and its impact on health inequality will be a key issue for all HAs.

  • Fall into line on rationing

    RATIONING

  • Fax and figures

    Just as a row over closures and cost savings was cooling down, a minor clerical error reignited it.

  • Galbraith is asked to explain board sackings

    A university principal has written to Scottish health minister Sam Galbraith saying he wants an explanation for the sacking of four non- executive directors from Tayside health board before he will nominate someone to fill one of the vacant posts.

  • Glimmer of hope for Lighthouse after Treasury approves emergency loan

    A London health authority has been given Treasury approval to make a loan of up to pounds925,000 to keep the London Lighthouse centre for people with HIV and AIDS going until the end of

  • Green light for health and social care trust

    Health and local authority chiefs have given the go-ahead to plans for the first mental health and social services trust outside Northern Ireland.

  • Health authority principles on tackling poverty

    Where services are resource-limited, they will be targeted at those in poverty.

  • Holy alliance:

    Holy alliance: Reverend John Palin, chaplain for Doncaster Healthcare trust, in front of one of six new hand-crafted stained glass windows in St Catherine's chapel at the multi-faith Spiritual Care Centre, which recently opened in Tickhill Road Hospital's former Oak ward. Local artist Alan Moston created the windows, which depict religious and medical images using a technique thousands of years old. The centre includes areas for both Christian and

  • HOW CAN NACGP KNOW WHAT WE'VE SAID IF IT HASN'T BOTHERED TO LISTEN?

    I was most surprised to read in your report about the creation of a new primary care organisation, the National Association of Primary Care, that Andrew Willis of the National Association of Commissioning GPs said it had not been possible to agree principles between his organisation, NAFP and the Association of Independent Multifunds (News, page 5, 30 April).

  • IN BRIEF

    Barristers were up in arms when the top 40 legal aid earners were 'named and shamed' by the Lord Chancellor's Department. One QC, who often acts for plaintiffs in medical negligence cases, and was paid more than pounds300,000 from the legal aid fund in 1996-97, protested that he won 82 per cent of his cases, so the taxpayer was usually reimbursed by the loser. But isn't the NHS funded by the taxpayer?

  • IN BRIEF

    The British Medical Association's council has voted unanimously to join the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which is calling for a 'once and for all' cancellation of third world debt. Council chair Sandy Macara has already written to the prime minister and senior government figures urging them to take a lead on debt cancellation.

  • IN BRIEF

    Three out of four Britons believe that free healthcare should be available to everyone - whatever the cost in taxation, according to a new MORI poll carried out for Debate of the Age. Further details on

  • In person

    John Mangan (above) has been appointed chief executive of the newly formed Thames Gateway trust. Mr Mangan was previously chief executive of North Kent Healthcare trust, which has merged with Thameslink Healthcare Services trust to form Thames Gateway. Mr Mangan qualified in psychiatric and general nursing and then took a degree in strategic health service management.

  • Jackie Ford scoffs at the slightest suggestion that leaving the NHS for university life is a soft option.

    To nail home her point she will reel off a list of performance measures and targets she has to meet which are, she says, every bit as demanding as those she faced in the health service.

  • JOB DESCRIPTION PUZZLE

    As someone who gets paid to do a job, and gets to work thanks to a train-driving professional, I am puzzled by the term 'health professionals', which I frequently see in your pages.

  • Key Points

    Managers interviewed in hospital trusts, health authorities and regional offices believed performance indicators to be broadly helpful. But our study found evidence that the role of the current performance indicators is distinctly limited.

  • Key Points

    The policy agenda for mental health services requires managers to develop new skills.

  • Magnetic attraction to nurses

    One great story about Florence Nightingale is rarely told. It describes how the forthright Florence refused to work unless she was given control over the whole environment in which patients were nursed. She was confident they would get better more quickly if nurses were put in charge of their care. When the doctors in the Crimea tried to blackmail her, claiming patients would die unless she did as she was told, she refused to compromise. She maintained that her patients would be worse off if

  • Managing well

    ESSENTIALS OF MANAGED HEALTH CARE

  • Meet the Aerospace Medical Association.

    You've read all those stories about how, while 30,000ft up in a jumbo jet, a GP armed only with a small item of cutlery and a miniature bottle of whisky with which to sterilise it performs life-saving surgery on the pilot, allowing him to land the plane safely. Now meet the Aerospace Medical Association.

  • Ministers move cautiously on pooled budgets

    Pooled budgets for health and social services will eventually be introduced but they are not a 'magic wand' for breaking down inter-agency barriers, MPs heard last week.

  • Monitor

    First, his boss, Tony Blair, signalled he would like to see the health secretary enter the race to become mayor of London. Now other colleagues have followed suit. A poll of Labour MPs by market research group Opinion Leader Research found Dobbo to be the top choice among those mooted for the post. The list included Glenda Jackson (second), Ken Livingstone (third) and broadcaster Trevor Phillips (fourth). If Labour spin doctors find any evidence that Dobbo's popularity is mirrored among the v

  • MPs condemn standard of leadership at heart of NHS

    MPs this week condemned the 'poor care and poor management' of many trusts and health authorities investigated by the health service commissioner and demanded that NHS central management take a closer interest in the performance of all NHS bodies.

  • MPs 'shocked' at wait for cataract ops in Scotland

    The NHS in Scotland has come under fire from MPs for a failure to achieve targets for cataract surgery and so realise annual savings of pounds1.5m.

  • Negligence actions at risk

    How will medical negligence cases be conducted in the brave new world if legal aid is withdrawn? Health service managers will find much to chew on in a report just out from the Institute for the Study of the Legal Profession at Sheffield University.

  • news focus

    This time next year, a new UK association for public health could be up and running.

  • Occupied territory

    Good occupational health makes financial sense, but many trusts don't realise it. Mark Crail reports

  • Parting of ways on Whitechapel project

    A trust involved in a high-profile private finance initiative project parted company with its private partner last week.

  • Primary care group money fails to quell fears as GPs deliver ultimatum

    Ministers last week pledged a pounds22m boost for the new primary care groups but failed to allay doctors' fears about the way the changes are being managed.

  • PROOF THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS LISTENING TO GRASS-ROOTS ON MENTAL HEALTH

    The latest leaked mental health strategy continues to whet the appetite (News Focus, page 11, 30 April). Prioritising both intensive health-based services (assertive outreach and 24-hour nursed beds) and social care (supported housing, meaningful occupations) reflects a growing consensus on what a comprehensive locally based service should look like.

  • PUBLIC AND MEDIA HYSTERIA PUTS MORE PEOPLE AT RISK OF HIV THAN ANYONE WHO IS HIV-POSITIVE

    HIV voluntary organisations are sometimes asked why we keep going on about HIV. Isn't it all over? Haven't we been to the top of the hill and down again?

  • QUERIES: JOINT WORKING, PLANNING, MENTAL HEALTH

    I have recently been given the opportunity to act as elderly day care liaison nurse between day care services from health and social services. The people I will be involved with are over 65 and have a diagnosis of dementia.

  • Row over cause of ambulance response rate fall

    Managers have disputed claims of a sharp decline in ambulance response rates in south-west London following the reduction of accident and emergency services.

  • 'SAVE BART'S' PETITION WAS DONE BY THE BOOK

    How odd that NHS chief executive Alan Langlands has not woken up to the desperate plight of old and sick people in London, and realised, as health secretary Frank Dobson has, that Bart's has enormous support because it is sorely needed (Monitor, 23 April).

  • Scots trusts told to open PFI plans to public scrutiny

    Scottish trusts have been told to open up key private finance initiative documents to public scrutiny.

  • Scots waiting lists reach an all-time high

    The number of people waiting for treatment in Scottish hospitals has risen to an all-time high, despite Labour promises to reduce waiting lists.

  • Screen hero

    Whistleblower Neil Woodward brought to light serious flaws in cervical screening at Kent and Canterbury trust, yet tells Mark Gould he feels his action has made him unemployable in the NHS

  • Teenagers are 'badly let down by managers'

    Teenagers are being badly let down by NHS managers, who are leaving them to languish in adult wards and failing to develop services for their specific needs, a health consortium claims.

  • The People's Dobbo takes on the fat cats BY MICHAEL WHITE

    By happy coincidence Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the grocery tycoon, chose to announce his imminent retirement from the board of the family firm in the very week that 'fat cat' rhetoric resurfaced in our great national press and, heaven help us, in the vocabulary of our great NHS as well.

  • This week

    Health check: public health minister Tessa Jowell arriving at the Langham working men's club, north London, where she launched a men's health campaign aimed at the over 40s. Club member Steve Connell, aged 44, is having his blood pressure taken by Ian Banks, head of the British Medical Association's men's health group, who carried out a series of lifestyle and health checks at the launch. Ms Jowell stressed that research shows that poor men die sooner, with a life expectancy of 70, compared w

  • Time for a meeting of minds

    A year into the current Labour administration we have policy initiatives that radically change the ideological basis of mental health services. Yet these initiatives have not been accompanied by clear thinking on the skills that managers will need to be able to deliver this new agenda or how organisations will need to develop to support managers.

  • University challenge

    Health service managers are moving into university research and development posts, bringing extra funds in their wake, and getting a chance to work more analytically and reflectively, reports Bernadette Friend

  • What's in a name?

    PHA was set up in 1987, as part of the resistance to the developing agenda of the Conservative government, by a group of people who met at the Health Education Council.

  • Where are they now?

    Healthcare 2000

  • YEAR 2000 HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT WORKBOOK

    Silicon Bridge Research 140 pages pounds95

  • You were saying...

    Naeem Chaudry from Edinburgh's new interpretation and translation service shows Edinburgh Royal Infirmary clerical officer Annette Perfect (far left) and auxiliary nurse Christina Johnston how patients can request its services using leaflets printed in different languages. ITS can provide interpreters and translations in 30 languages. It can also provide signers for deaf people and information in Braille, large-print and audio-tape formats. The agency has received pounds50,000 funding from Ed

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