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Health Service Journal
2000-06-15

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  • Action teams to unveil first ideas

    The government's modernisation action teams meet in London today to polish their ideas before presenting them to ministers in the next fortnight.

  • All stressed up and nowhere to go?

    Heavy workload is often cited as a major cause of dissatisfaction and stress among GPs.

  • Appointments signal reprieve for renal service

    The NHS in Wales has secured its renal transplant service with the appointment of two consultant surgeons. The unit at Cardiff 's University Hospital of Wales has been short of surgeons for over a year, leading to an eight-day suspension of service earlier this year. There is a national shortage of renal transplant surgeons, with between 12 and 18 vacant posts in 30 units. Some units face closure following Royal College of Surgeons proposals that all renal transplant units should have four co

  • Armed forces training at least equal to NHS's

    Letters

  • Back-to-work basics

    Persuading healthcare professionals to return to practice met with remarkable success among one group of trusts. Claire Grout describes how they did it

  • BMA meets Milburn for post-Ledward talks

    The British Medical Association has met health secretary Alan Milburn following friction with the government in the wake of the Rodney Ledward scandal. A BMA statement said Mr Milburn had welcomed the opportunity and expressed support for consultants. In return, chair Dr Ian Bogle 'reiterated the BMA's total support for change in the NHS' and told Mr Milburn that the idea that doctors were against change, were attempting to defend the status quo or were anxious to defend poor practice was 'co

  • Bunch picked for BAMM chair

    Oxford Radcliffe Hospital trust medical director Chris Bunch is the man who will chair BAMM from next year. Dr Bunch was elected as vice-chair at this year's conference and will take over in a year's time.

  • Carers live in poverty, association's survey reveals

    The Carers National Association has claimed that many carers are living in poverty. One in five responding to a survey said they had to cut back on the number of hot meals they ate, while more than one in 10 were struggling to pay the mortgage. Six out of 10 carers live in households without any paid jobs. The association is calling for an increase in benefits and pensions and more work opportunities.

  • Chairs face axe in purge to 'refresh' service

    Almost a quarter of Scotland's chairs may be purged by Scottish health minister Susan Deacon in a bid to 'refresh' the service.

  • Checkmate for 'king' consultants

    Clinical governance is working and managers are feeling the load

  • Children's education prospects hit by caring roles

    A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report coinciding with national carers week says that children and young people who care for chronically sick and disabled parents can experience long-term problems in their own lives because of missed schooling and lack of qualifications. Interviews with 60 young carers by Loughborough University found that a third of parents had no support from social or mental health services, a third of the carers lived in one-parent families, half had missed schooling and a q

  • Clwyd gives vent to private fury over shamed medics

    I tend to be wary of public persecution of named individuals, even by politicians (or journalists) I respect. The righteous zeal of the animal rights lobby, for instance, often smacks of the hunt in full pursuit of the fox, as we are finding again this week.

  • Complaints flourish when communication fails

    Letters

  • Confederation is meeting devolution head-on

    Letters

  • Cooper throws a fit - on scrip

    Public health minister Yvette Cooper has announced plans to expand exercise on prescription schemes.

  • Days like this

    Consultants hit out at reforms. . . junior doctors press for strike action. . . focus on London co-ordination. . . accountants steer clear of NHS

  • Dear Mel. . .

    Our trust is having merger talks with Tesco. Hospital employees will get bonus Club Card points, but I think patients should as well. Do you agree?

  • Doctor backs GMC's role

    A senior Scottish doctor has entered the row over medical regulation by claiming it is not the General Medical Council that is failing the public, but managers.

  • Double trouble: this week's role of shame

    The Commission for Health Improvement has been called in to investigate four trusts which employed a locum pathologist who misdiagnosed more than 200 cancer patients.

  • Early-warning plan will target failures

    An early-warning system to deal with all clinical mistakes in the NHS will be set up by the end of the year.

  • Events

    Items are entered free for public sector, voluntary and professional organisations, but we need at least six weeks' notice of your event. Please send details to Uli Jaeger, HSJ , Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ. Fax: 020-7874 0254.

  • Favourite is service outsider

    The next leader of the NHS could be a senior civil servant or leading industrialist, according to Whitehall insiders.

  • Fears that new top job signals tighter control

    Managers fear that health secretary Alan Milburn's decision to combine the top jobs at the NHS Executive and Department of Health signals a further tightening of control, ending the arm's-length role of the Executive.

  • First among equals

    Priority setting and the public By Penelope Mullen and Peter Spurgeon Radcliffe Medical Press 168 pages £24.50

  • Funds of all knowledge

    GPs and purchasing in the NHS: the internal market and beyond By Bernard Dowling Ashgate 276 pages £39.95

  • Furious juniors threaten ballot on action against 'cruddy' sub-consultant scheme

    Junior doctors have threatened industrial action against a proposed new sub-consultant specialist grade.

  • Going into labour

    One of the authors of a major report on birth statistics has criticised the government's new systems for collecting health data. Janet Snell finds out why co-ordinating national health statistics is not child's play

  • Grief encounter

    When Helen Easton's teenage son was dying from cancer, she felt isolated in her suffering. Now she is setting up a project to help others in similar circumstances

  • Heaven can wait

    Innovation? Give us more. Grand plan? Let's start tomorrow. The New Health Network conference was painfully on-message. Maura Thompson was there

  • Hospitals for people with learning disabilities to close

    Scotland is to close all of its remaining hospitals for people with learning disabilities within five years and place individuals in the community. Responding to a learning disabilities review published last month, deputy community care minister Iain Gray explained: 'The main finding was that people with learning disabilities should be part of the community. This means ensuring appropriate services are available and making sure they have opportunities to get a job, develop as individuals and

  • 'I'm getting some interference': the voice of experience

    Victor Paige was the first chair of the NHS management board in 1984, which later became the NHS Executive. He resigned less than two years later.

  • In brief: Bairbre de Brun

    Northern Ireland health minister Bairbre de Brun has officially met the Irish government's minister for health and children, Micheal Martin, at a meeting of the North/South ministerial council sectoral group on food safety promotion and health. The ministers discussed a range of health issues requiring improved cross-border co-operation, including accident and emergency planning and cancer research.

  • In brief: King's Mill Centre for Health Care Services trust

    An independent inquiry into allegations that human organs were inappropriately d isposed of at King's Mill Centre for Health Care Services trust has been ordered by Dr Lindsey Davies, regional director of public health for Trent, following instructions from health secretary Alan Milburn. It will be led by Barrie Atkinson, a non-executive director of Leicestershire health authority.

  • In brief: Magazine of the year

    HSJ has been named magazine of the year in Emap Communications' annual awards. A team of external judges said it had had 'an extraordinary year' and had 'cemented its position' as the leading magazine for healthcare managers. Runners-up were Local Government Chronicle and New Civil Engineer.

  • In brief: National Institute for Clinical Excellence

    The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has worked w ith an adv isor y body of patient, carer and user groups to produce a document on how to prepare submissions for NICE.

  • In brief: NHS chief executives

    Almost 80 per cent of NHS chief executives believe there is a potential conflict of interest between consultants' NHS work and their private practice, according to a Consumers' Association poll. The survey has been submitted to the Commons health select committee's inquiry on consultants' contracts, which starts taking evidence today.

  • In brief: NHS organisations

    NHS organisations were instructed to hold managers' pay rises overall to 3.2 per cent last year, not 2.7 per cent as reported on 1 June (news, p6).The error was HSJ's.

  • In Person

    Caroline Wigley became chief executive of Birmingham Women's Health Care trust on 1 June. She has worked in the health service for 23 years and been director of operations at City Hospital, Birmingham, since 1996.

  • Lessons to be learned from the great outdoors

    Letters

  • List-scandal deputy chief resigns

    Plymouth Hospitals trust has accepted the resignation of deputy chief executive Martin Cusack with immediate effect.

  • Managers under fire in regulation debate

    Managers have came under fire from both sides in a debate on the future of professional self-regulation for failing to deal with incompetent or improperly behaved health professionals.

  • Members of the Oxfordshire inter-trust recruitment and retention group

    Sharon Barrington Head of physiotherapy services, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Debbie Christian Professional development nurse, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre June Davies Chief dietitian, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Nettie Dearmun Principal lecturer/senior nurse, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals/Oxford Brookes University Anona Glithero Senior nurse, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Claire Grout Continuing professional development pharmacist, Berkshire & Oxfordshire Hospitals Claire Houghton Physiotherapy serv

  • monitor

    Another answer to the first part of Monitor's ongoing quiz has whizzed its way through cyberspace. Peter Nicholas, who sadly does not say which part of the NHS he is from, but is probably a crossword fan, suggests that 'a step change is a pest'. Ah yes! And while everybody is mulling that one over, we'll move swiftly on to part two: what is an ideological hang-up? The question was posed because that nice Mr Milburn said he didn't have one about the private sector. So this first response had b

  • Move over

    It used to be a Bad Thing, but now it's a Good Thing. What has put an NHS 'takeover' of social services back on the agenda? Tash Shifrin investigates

  • Moving on: Kelly's farewell message

    Departing permanent secretary Chris Kelly joined the civil service from Trinity College, Cambridge and Manchester University. He spent 25 years at the Treasury, moving to the Department of Health in 1997, following a short period at the Department of Social Security.

  • No end to the production line

    Health minister John Denham was spared the embarrassment of a slow handclap at the British Association of Medical Managers' conference, but the drive for reform has stirred up dissension among the ranks. Alison Moore reports

  • Once bitten. . .

    In the third in our series on the government's modernisation plans for the NHS, we look at prevention and inequalities.

  • Scottish ambulance service goes under spotlight

    Scotland's ambulance service is to undertake the most extensive review of its operations in its 50-year history from now until next April. Beyond 2000 will examine non-emergency services and operations control rooms and evaluate a priority-based dispatch system. Ray Hepburn, project leader in charge of the priority dispatch system, said: 'The biggest concern for the public will be whether they can still dial 999 and get an ambulance. We are saying they will, but that they might not get one st

  • Seams good to us

    Could the roles of hospital specialists and GPs be adapted to provide closer integration, better patient care and decreased waiting times? James Ward and Romesh Gupta report

  • Survey GPs positive on clinical governance

    Letters

  • The gentle touch

    Introducing palliative care Third Edition By Robert Twycross Radcliffe Medical Press 200 pages £18.85

  • Too many facts, too few words

    Producing patient information is fraught with pitfalls. Updating a number of factsheets fell to me over a recent wet bank holiday weekend. By Monday evening my mind was reeling from trying to achieve a balance between plain English, political correctness, evidence-based factual accuracy and being neither simplistic and condescending on the one hand, nor over-complicated and academic on the other.

  • Two into one will go

    Chief executives have been told that health secretary Alan Milburn has decided on a radical shake-up at the very top of the NHS. He is to appoint just one person to fill the shoes of both departing NHS chief executive Sir Alan Langlands and Department of Health permanent secretary Chris Kelly.

  • Waiting-list target achieved - now let's dump it

    Letters

  • Wales told fresh targets must be met with current funding

    The Welsh health service has been set stringent targets on waiting-list reduction which health and social services secretary Jane Hutt insists can be met with a £40m allocation made in May.

  • WEB WATCH

    A researcher posing as a middle-aged man who was already taking drugs for a heart condition found few difficulties in obtaining Viagra from one UK-based company as part of a recent Health Which? investigation into online medical sites.

  • When it comes to defending PFI, the facts speak for themselves

    Letters

  • Who will take the pressure as two become one?

    What seems a logical step may turn out to be impossible to achieve

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