Health Service Journal
4 November 2010
View all stories from this issue.
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'A good coach helps you to see the world as it really is'
Stress levels in the management community are higher than at any time since I joined it 41 years ago. At best, many managers face the loss of career prospects and life chances. At worst, they face the loss of employment and real hardship. -
Achieving whole hospital change
Peter Homa explains how Nottingham University Hospitals Trust is achieving more from less with a whole hospitals change programme -
Any future for non-foundation trusts?
The alternatives to foundation status are still shrouded in mystery, say Jo Eastaugh and Jonathan Shapiro -
Book Review: The Managing Change Pocketbook
Some useful if not revolutionary tips for transition, says Liz Hedgecock -
Career transition: your five steps to the future
The direction of your career might sometimes look scary - but it doesn’t need to be. Just follow Steve Preston’s tips for navigating the road to re-adjustment -
Children's hospital ordered to improve cleanliness
Improvements at a children’s hospital in Scotland have been demanded after inspectors found evidence of stained mattresses and staff not washing their hands properly. -
Children's hospitals face 'stealth cuts' - Healey
Children’s hospitals face “stealth cuts” that could affect their ability to treat sick youngsters, ministers have been warned. -
Clock change 'would improve nation's health'
The health and wellbeing of the nation would “vastly” improve if the clocks did not go back this weekend, experts have said. -
College of Medicine denies link to homeopathy charity
The new College Of Medicine has denied it is linked to Prince Charles’s Foundation for Integrated Health, which controversially folded this year. -
Commissioning tools launched for neuro conditions and cardiac rehab
Three charities have developed an online support tool for GP consortia to commission neurological services. -
Competition will 'overshadow' white paper benefits - BMA
Extending NHS competition could undermine any potential benefits arising from the white paper, the British Medical Association has warned. -
'Complaints about NICE on one page and useless, costly drugs on another'
After a summer in which Labour’s health team was off fighting a leadership contest and the Liberal Democrat team was co-opted into government, health politics are livening up. No more Mr Nice Guy seems to be John Healey’s message. -
Concern over rate of PCT talent drain
MPs and GPs are concerned primary care trusts have already begun losing some of their best managers ahead of their proposed abolition. -
Councils and NHS 'must cooperate on social care'
The health service and local government must work as partners on social care in the face of a spending squeeze, the NHS Confederation has said. -
Councils 'lagging' on social care personal budgets plan
Local authorities face a major challenge to implement personal budgets for social care with some already “lagging behind”, an Audit Commission report has warned. -
CQC says improvements still needed at Mid Staffs
Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust has been told it still needs to make improvements, more than 18 months after its serious failings were brought to light. -
Dr Foster sticks with alternative death rate
One of the most prominent methods of comparing hospital death rates has been the hospital standardised mortality ratio, promulgated by firm Dr Foster and used to create its annual Hospital Guide since 2001. -
EU paves way for overseas treatment of rare diseases
Primary care trusts will come under pressure to pay for patients to go abroad for treatments not provided by the NHS, under measures approved by the European parliament’s public health committee. -
Foreign firms will 'swoop on NHS'
Large foreign firms are “licking their lips” at the prospect of commissioning billions of pounds of services on behalf of GPs if controversial NHS reforms go ahead, Labour has claimed. -
GP commissioner groups ‘will be size of PCTs’
One of NHS London’s leading GPs has said most of the capital’s commissioning groups will be the same size as primary care trusts. -
GP consortia accountability questioned
Questions about the financial accountability of GP consortia have been raised in the House of Commons. -
GP consortia pathfinder guidelines published
Specific guidance on establishing GP consortia “pathfinders” has been sent to all strategic authority chief executives. -
GPs 'outraged' at central commissioning of maternity services
GPs say it is “outrageous” that maternity services will be commissioned centrally and not by local consortia. -
GPs stung by maternity services rebuff
Who should commission maternity care? Health secretary Andrew Lansley has decided it should not be part of the “great majority” of services that GPs will eventually be responsible for. -
Independent contractors and the NHS
Are independent contractors really part of the NHS? The answer, traditionally, has been “yes, when convenient; no, when not”. -
Information technology: reprogramming the IT culture of the NHS
The vision of a vastly standardised and over-reaching IT system for the NHS has been supplanted by a return to local and modular ideals, but many uncertainties remain -
Legal limit on salt 'a cost-effective public health measure', study claims
Legal limits on salt levels in food are 20 times more effective at reducing heart disease than voluntary measures, it has been claimed. -
'Major NHS reforms are driven by the heart, not the calculator'
Two things become apparent from recent parliamentary exchanges on the cost of anticipated large scale NHS redundancies. -
Male life expectancy increases to 78
Life expectancy for men has increased by almost three years in the last decade, closing the gender gap with women, government figures showed today. -
Mental health hit by integration issues
Mental health patients are failing to benefit from personal care budgets because of poor inter-agency working. -
Mid Staffs compensation bill revealed
Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust has been forced to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation to bereaved relatives and victims of its “appalling” patient care. -
More Tribal health staff jobs now at risk
Consultancy Tribal has launched another round of redundancies in a review of its health business. -
New hospital death rates to be published in April
An official NHS death rate for hospital trusts will be published within six months and must not be ignored, the Department of Health was due to announce today. -
NHS Commissioning Board to check foreign doctors' language skills
The new NHS Commissioning Board is to take responsibility for testing the language and clinical skills of foreign doctors from within the EU, the Department of Health has said. -
Organ transplants hit record high
A record number of organ transplants were carried out in the UK last year, figures show. -
Patients will move between commissioners, warns GP
Patients will “get on a bus” to find care denied by GP commissioners, a senior doctor has told MPs and peers. -
Pay GPs more in poorer areas - public accounts committee
GPs should be offered more money to work in deprived areas as part of efforts to tackle the health gap between rich and poor, an influential group of MPs has said. -
PCT chief exec steps down via MARS
A Shropshire chief executive is to leave his primary care trust at the end of the month via the government’s scheme to streamline management cuts. -
PCT defends contraceptive pill decision
A scheme launched this week to allow girls as young as 13 to receive the contraceptive pill without their parents’ knowledge has been defended by the primary care trust running the service. -
Pinning down patient opinion on mental healthcare
An audit tool has been successfully piloted to measure older mental health service users’ views. Seraphim Rose Patel and colleagues explain. -
Practice based commissioning academy gets rebranded
The NHS Alliance and its private sector partner Humana have rebadged their so called practice based commissioning academy to appeal to fledgling GP consortia. -
Private sector gets 6pc of big ticket NHS spend
Some 6 per cent of big ticket spending in the NHS is with the private sector, analysis by HSJ suggests. -
Probe into patients' drug overdose deaths
Two patients at a psychiatric unit in St Helens have died in suspected drug overdoses, police have said. -
Report highlights out-of-date keyhole equipment
More than one in four hospitals performing keyhole surgery are using out-of-date and potentially unsafe equipment, according to a new report. -
Seven provider arms achieve NHS trust status
Seven primary care trust provider arms took the next step towards becoming community foundation trusts when they become NHS trusts today. -
Shadow health minister attacks children's tariff cut
Shadow health minister John Healey has said planned changes to hospital payments for children’s care could leave some trusts “millions of pounds short of the funding they need”. -
The new mortality indicator suffers from mixed messages
The debate over how hospital mortality should be measured and whether those measures reveal anything useful has rumbled on for the last decade. -
The NHS needs to re-invent itself to cope with funding cuts
The NHS’s funding increase is actually a 0.5 per cent cut - efficiency savings of 4-5 per cent will have to be found. -
Top-up reduction proposal news 'not that new'
Most of the news this week was not that new. -
Trust plans closure of seven wards
A hospital trust plans to close the equivalent of seven wards to get back into financial balance. -
Voluntary MARS pay-off plan attracts very few takers
A key government initiative to reduce NHS management costs is heading for failure, HSJ research suggests -
Worcestershire chief exec to retire via MARS
The chief executive of NHS Worcestershire is to step down at the end of the year via the health service’s lump sum pay off deal. -
Your Humble Servant: home front
‘We’re invading your privacy at home, and turning it into the outpatient clinic’
