Health Service Journal
BY MARK CRAIL
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WEB WATCH
16-Sep-1999
While the Department of Health continues ploughing good money after bad in an attempt to maintain its glorious technological isolation from the grubby world outside, our American cousins forge ahead, placing their faith in the very latest encryption software and the hottest and highest of firewalls. -
WEB WATCH
12-Aug-1999
Finding what you want on the Internet can be a pain. Now finding pain itself on the Internet has become considerably easier, thanks to Dr Andrew Moore and his colleagues at the pain research unit of Churchill Hospital, Headington, and the people who brought you Bandolier. -
WEB WATCH
5-Aug-1999
'This site is under construction... literally,' reads the blurb. Work on Dartford and Gravesham's new £100m hospital, the first to be built under the private finance initiative, is now fairly far advanced. New roads have been built, the helipad is complete, and the builders are keen to show off their work. -
WEB WATCH
29-Jul-1999
Who would have thought the most useful person on the web would turn out to be a butler? -
WEB WATCH
22-Jul-1999
The case against animal research is a relatively easy one to make. Produce a few cuddly bunnies, talk emotively about evil scientists with electrodes, and there you have it. The case for cutting up small furry animals, on the other hand, is more complex but has other advantages, not least a large budget. -
WEB WATCH
15-Jul-1999
If you are reading this to pass the time while queueing outside your local Roxy, then the chances are you already know that today sees the UK cinema debut of The Phantom Menace , part one in George Lucas' Star Wars epic, which so creatively began with parts four to six. -
WEB WATCH
8-Jul-1999
What tune best sums up the primary care group challenge? Eschewing the obvious Money (or even Money, Money Money), maybe Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown would fit the bill. Not for Bexley and Greenwich PCGs, where visitors to an online PCG theme competition have inexplicably plumped for the theme tune from Neighbours and the Nutcracker Suite respectively. -
WEB WATCH
14-Jan-1999
It is a hard life as an expert medical witness. Slaving away for just £124 an hour to prepare your evidence, and going to court for £870 a day - it's barely enough to keep the Woolf from the door. -
WEB WATCH
12-Nov-1998
Does anti-tobacco propaganda work? Difficult to tell - though according to official statistics, among non-smokers almost half the men and more than a third of the women used to smoke, which may tell us something. -
WEB WATCH
5-Nov-1998
In Whitehall, agriculture minister Jack Cunningham sits with his colleagues, peering over his new ministerial red boxes. Unlike the previous government, this one 'will publish any report on public health immediately it comes to us', he promises, the shiny novelty of high office not yet having worn off. -
WEB WATCH
22-Oct-1998
The House of Commons returned this week to complete the unfinished business of the old parliamentary session before the Queen's speech launches us into a fresh round of political thrills and spills. So what better time to look back on the obsessions of the past 12 months? -
WEB WATCH
1-Oct-1998
'People must beware of miracle cures and medical offers on the Internet,' warns John Bridgeman, director general of the Office of Fair Trading. 'If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.' Sound advice. -
WEB WATCH
24-Sep-1998
'As a result of the German invasion, I left my home in Vienna and came to England, where I hope to end my life in freedom,' declared Sigmund Freud in a BBC radio broadcast in 1938. Until his death the following year, he lived at 20 Maresfield Gardens in the plush London suburb of Hampstead. -
WEB WATCH
17-Sep-1998
Lightning may strike at any time. Capable of travelling almost horizontally for up to 10 kilometres from the storm cloud in which it originated, a thunderbolt may appear to come out of a clear blue sky, long before the storm rolls into view. The faster and -
WEB WATCH
10-Sep-1998
The Department of Health is about to transform its web site from something resembling a 'typical 1950s civil service design' with a 'mystifying' database into a modern and comprehensive source of information for the public and professionals alike. How do I know? It says so. -
WEB WATCH
3-Sep-1998
I am going outside now. I may be some time. Autumn is approaching, and our thoughts turn naturally to howling winds, snow drifts and temperatures of 40 degrees below freezing. But if you think it's going to be bad here, spare a thought for the medics of the British Antarctic Survey. -
WEB WATCH
20-Aug-1998
If your access to the wonderful world of communications technology comes from within the NHS, then you are most likely already aware of NHSweb. If not, http://nww.inform.nhsweb. nhs.uk will produce only an annoying insistence on the part of your web browser that the site has no DNS entry. -
WEB WATCH
13-Aug-1998
The truth is out there. But trawling through what passes for healthcare advice on the Internet, you wouldn't know it. In a week that sees the advent of the International Trepanation Advocacy Group online, you may well feel that you need more of it like you need a hole in the head. -
WEB WATCH
13-Aug-1998
The truth is out there. But trawling through what passes for healthcare advice on the Internet, you wouldn't know it. In a week that sees the advent of the International Trepanation Advocacy Group online, you may well feel that you need more of it like you need a hole in the head. -
WEB WATCH
6-Aug-1998
Somewhere out there in cyberspace, someone shares your interest in the early history of health economics, the research possibilities inherent in The New NHS, or whatever it is that turns you on. Indeed, the ether is probably buzzing already with fellow enthusiasts sharing ideas. But how to find them? -
WEB WATCH
6-Aug-1998
Somewhere out there in cyberspace, someone shares your interest in the early history of health economics, the research possibilities inherent in The New NHS, or whatever it is that turns you on. Indeed, the ether is probably buzzing already with fellow enthusiasts sharing ideas. But how to find them? -
WEB WATCH
30-Jul-1998
It has probably already become inevitable that the new National Institute for Clinical Excellence will have its own website on which to set out all the good things that people can and should be doing. But what about the Commission for Health Improvement? Will it engage in virtual naming and shaming? -
WEB WATCH
25-Jun-1998
How do you see the world evolving by 2020? Will we find ourselves in a fragmented society in which we have to find our own way and science is just one voice among competing world views. Or will the nation state reassert itself, and with it individual reliance on those speaking with the voice of authority? -
WEB WATCH
18-Jun-1998
There are times when the Institute of Management gives a good impression of suggesting that if you're not running a FT-SE 100 company then you are not really managing. Its last annual management pay survey reported rises of 10 per cent for directors due to 'business growth'. Eat your heart out, NHS. -
WEB WATCH
11-Jun-1998
If you want to live beyond 100, your best bet may be to live past your mid-eighties. Obvious perhaps, but researchers in the US say their studies of centenarians suggest that there is a 'weeding out' process of the 'sick old' before their 90th birthday: those who survive it just seem to keep on going. -
Primary care group money fails to quell fears as GPs deliver ultimatum
14-May-1998
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. -
Mental health groups accuse Labour of going back on election promises
7-May-1998
Mental health groups reacted with dismay this week to the government's asyet still-secret plans for a shift in policy on community care backed by £50m a year investment in NHS mental health services. -
£500m for mental health in effort to 'protect public'
30-Apr-1998
JOURNAL EXCLUSIVE -
Expert tells GPs to recruit high-paid chiefs for PCGs
5-Mar-1998
GPs must recruit high-paid, high-powered chief executives to run primary care groups or watch them founder, a top health policy analyst warned last week.
