Health Service Journal
18 February 2010
View all stories from this issue.
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Alan Maynard: could the Tories give PCTs bite?
The ‘toothless bulldogs’ of the NHS might hope for more control over purchasing under the Conservatives -
Andrew Jones on the politics of wellbeing
Election season is upon us and the aspiring communicator can only watch in awe as the main protagonists wheel out their proven strategists and presenters. -
Annual cancer costs 'to reach £25bn'
Cancer costs England more than £18bn a year, but the figure could rise to almost £25bn over the next decade, a report published today says. -
Archbishop attacks NHS for 'lack of compassion'
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has criticised the NHS for treating some patients with a lack of compassion. -
Bed numbers will dictate CQC registration fees
Plans for charging trusts to register with the Care Quality Commission are going ahead despite warnings they are “fraught with potential risk”. -
Blackburn care trust plus given go ahead
The Department of Health has approved plans for NHS Blackburn with Darwen to become a care trust plus. -
BMA extends campaign against NHS privatisation
The British Medical Association plans to widen its campaign against NHS privatisation to patients after focusing on doctors since it began last year. -
BMA says no
One hsj.co.uk reader has come up with a tongue in cheek experiment, prompted by the British Medical Association’s anti-privatisation campaign. -
Book Review: Wikinomics
This book shows how online interaction boosts business, says Samantha Allen -
Burying the NHS mortality row will clear the way for quality push
The Department of Health is trying to get a grip on the toxic issue of hospital standardised mortality ratios. -
Cally Bann: funding gap
Call me old fashioned, but if you ask me, the difference between 240 and 260 is 20. Which is what I call a gap. -
Community Development Workers for Brent
NHS Brent -
Concerns over free home care plans
Dozens of senior councillors from all three parties have publicly complained that government plans to provide free home care are flawed and will force cuts to current services. -
CQC fears over mental health safeguards
The Care Quality Commission is looking for urgent “levers” to strengthen legal safeguards it fears are failing to protect vulnerable mental health patients. -
CQC reports 'pockets of poor performance'
Fears over safeguarding and the adequacy of staff training mar a picture of steady improvement in care services, the Care Quality Commission has said. -
David Cameron vows to publish details of NHS contracts
David Cameron has accused Labour of wasting billions of pounds with its “secretive and inefficient” regime for handing out government contracts. -
'Death tax' clarification sought
Social care bosses and charities are backing a compulsory levy of as much as £20,000 to pay for elderly social care and they want ministers to clarify their position. -
DH takes hold of death ratio debate
The Department of Health is taking action to ensure the NHS agrees a way of measuring and reporting hospitals’ death rates, in response to the furore prompted by last year’s Dr Foster Hospital Guide. -
Dorset Hospital makes U-turn on redundancies
Dorset County Hospital Foundation Trust has made a U-turn on its decision to axe 28 managerial posts by next month - a move which would have cost £3m in redundancy packages. -
Elderly care row escalates
The row over reform of care for the elderly escalated over the weekend as Labour and the Tories accused each other of sabotaging attempts to reach a cross-party consensus. -
Find out more about information sharing
Get feedback on your quiz results and find further resources. -
Former chief executive dies
Robert Tinston, vice-chair and non-executive director of NHS Western Cheshire, has died. -
Great to good
Department of Health witnesses appeared to be feeling the pressure during the latest round of the Commons health select committee’s inquiry into commissioning. -
Guidance shows clinical audit value
A new guide to help NHS boards improve patient care through clinical audits has been published by a health consortium. -
Independent review of Cornwall reconfiguration
The Independent Reconfiguration Panel is to review a controversial reconfiguration of upper gastro-intestinal cancer services in the South West. -
Information for improvement: quality accounts
A resource for organisations seeking to identify the information they can potentially use for quality accounts. -
Let's talk about death
A press release last week titled Let’s Talk About Death was particularly timely, coming amid hot debates about end of life care. -
Life in the public [health] eye
It could be argued that public health minister Gillian Merron has had it a tad easy this year. With the exception of a warning that chlamydia should be avoided and a quote about shingles being nasty, she seems to have landed all the fun jobs. -
Listening NHS chiefs boost ratings
Trust boards led by chiefs who are not too autocratic and who encourage contributions from non-executives and clinicians perform better in annual health checks, research has revealed. -
Making safety a board priority is a winning move
HSJ is delighted to announce that Ann Farrar and colleagues from Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust and Phao Hewitson and colleagues from Walsall Hospitals Trust are the joint winners of the HSJ and Nursing Times Patient Safety Award for Board Leadership. -
Managers left mystified by Improvement Foundation closure
A company providing training to hundreds of NHS managers has suddenly ceased trading. -
Media Watch: social care funding fight
A toe-to-toe row between health secretary Andy Burnham and his Tory counterpart Andrew Lansley in the Commons injected some colour into the papers last week. -
Michael White: the personal care row
Seatbelts on please, crash helmets too. The pre-election row over personal care for the elderly shows alarming signs of blundering on to polling day. -
Monitor revises private patient income cap rules
Foundation trusts must ensure the proportion of the income they earn from the treatment of private patients is no more than it was in 2002-03, even if it was earned through a subsidiary or joint venture. -
New boss for NHS Barking and Dagenham
NHS Barking and Dagenham has appointed Stephen Langford as its new chief executive. -
New chief exec for Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust
Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust has appointed Rachel Newson as chief executive. -
New deputy chief exec for South Downs
South Downs Health Trust has appointed Clodagh Warde-Robinson as its new deputy chief executive. -
NHS car parking: driven to distraction
Hospital car parking has become an impassioned talking point. While it may seem a side issue to the real work of healthcare, the heated arguments over charging won’t subside until policies are seen as fair and fixed, writes Joe Farrington-Douglas -
NHS Confed challenges construction industry to innovate
The NHS Confederation has challenged the construction industry to create a new generation of affordable, flexible primary care facilities. -
NHS Confederation governance shake-up
The NHS Confederation is to appoint a remunerated chair as part of a shake-up of its governance arrangements. -
NHS needs 'business model' change, says former Brown adviser
The NHS needs to change its “business model” to survive investment cuts, Gordon Brown’s former adviser on public service transformation has said. -
NHS trusts 'not acting on safety alerts'
Hundreds of trusts have failed to take action on patient safety alerts issued to tackle problems that cause injury or death, a report out today says. -
NHS trusts 'slow to process bills'
A survey has revealed that some NHS trusts are not processing any bills within 10 days and others are barely managing to pay a fifth within 30 days. -
NHS Wales meets six month waiting time target
NHS Wales has met a target set five years ago to cut waiting times to less than six months, it has been revealed. -
NPSA halts search for chief executive
The National Patient Safety Agency has put off its search for a new chief executive amid a Department of Health clampdown on senior appointments at arm’s length bodies. -
Nursing commission recommends stricter criteria for 'advanced' status
The Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery will unleash reforms that could lead to a significant reduction in the numbers of highly paid “specialist nurses”. -
Parties renew spending cut row
A new row has erupted between the main political parties over their spending plans after business secretary Lord Mandelson appeared to suggest that Labour would have to start making cuts this year. -
Patient Safety Awards 2010: winners' supplement
The Patient Safety Awards celebrate the commitment and creativity shown by individuals and organisations, and disseminate best practice throughout the UK and beyond. The individuals and teams involved in all the shortlisted entries are examples of the best in healthcare and demonstrate that patient safety truly is at the heart of what you do. -
Private option for Hinchingbrooke looks more likely
Hinchingbrooke Hospital will now almost certainly be taken over by a private company after the only NHS organisation bidding for the franchise to run it dropped out. -
Public sector job outlook 'bleak'
Job losses look set to increase as the outlook for employment worsens and cuts spread to the public sector, a new report claims. -
Public services failing to satisfy customers
Public services are struggling to achieve customer satisfaction among the people they serve, according to a new report. -
Red faced statisticians
“Christmas Eve top day of the year for NHS births - Boxing Day is bottom,” announced the NHS Information Centre last week. -
Royal Pharmaceutical Society warns on drug stock levels
Urgent action is needed to stem shortages of some medicines in the UK as drug wholesalers look to export stocks to profit from the weak pound, a body representing pharmacists has warned. -
Royal Surrey has some explaining to do
HSJ’s revelation that Royal Surrey County Hospital was the foundation trust selling millions of pounds of drugs on the export market requires some answers from its board. -
Self belief: give yourself some credit
Believing in yourself is essential to successful performance and has two components - self-esteem and self-confidence, says Adrian Moorhouse -
Sheila Williams on leading staff through tough times
Leaders need to remember their core purpose - that of engaging the hearts and minds of their people. -
Take action to ensure NHS data security
High profile data losses have led to tighter sanctions, which will affect NHS organisations, says Simon Charlton -
Test your knowledge of information sharing
Find out how much you know about information sharing and your responsibilities by taking our interactive quiz. -
Tories sketch out public sector co-ops
The Tories have renewed a pledge to give public sector workers the chance to form co-operatives to run services. -
Tories: no council control of public health budgets
Councils would not directly receive public health budgets under a Conservative government, the shadow health secretary has said. -
Total Place: how partnerships can maximise resources
In the final part in our series on Total Place, Helen Mooney looks at how Birmingham’s Total Place pilot is focused on cutting through organisational boundaries and slashing waste while delivering better services -
Transforming community services: handover heralds a flexible future
Transferring community services to a foundation trust allows one PCT to focus on choice, say Jamie Foster and Jane Gateley -
Trusts face hard task to achieve 18-week ‘right’
Trusts are facing a difficult six weeks before the promised right for patients to be treated within 18 weeks comes into force on 1 April, at the likely start of a general election campaign. -
Unions rubbish Tory co-op plans
Unions have ridiculed Tory plans to allow frontline staff to take over the health and education services.
