Health Service Journal
2000-12-14
View all stories from this issue.
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Ah yes, I remember it well. . . .
Or do you? An end-of-year quiz on the events of 2000 -
All white on the night: but not without risk
This winter's unprecedented rains and flooding inevitably raise questions about the consequences of climate change on health. -
Bash street kids slug it out for Citizen Windsor
One sentence leaped out of the Whitehall guidance note which accompanies the annual Queen's Speech programme. After dealing at length with the government's yobbashing proposals, the note seamlessly asserted: -
Broken headsets and Bing Crosby
'In the 1970s I used to do voluntary work for a station with the rather grand-sounding title of the Edinburgh Hospital Broadcasting Service. It broadcast to nine hospitals but it probably had about nine listeners, too. The enduring problem was trying to get the hospital electricians to give any sort of priority to repairing bedside headsets. They seemed preoccupied with things like the operating theatre lights, for some reason. So a lot of the time the sets weren't working, which meant the pa -
Call for uniformity and improvement of CHD care
Junior health minister Gisela Stuart has called on trusts to improve the care of coronary heart disease patients after the results of a survey of CHD patients showed that a significant minority had an unsatisfactory experience of treatment and that there were major variations between trusts. The independent survey, carried out for the NHS, of over 80,000 patients in 178 trusts in England shows that although the majority of trusts provided a good service, there are wide variations in the way p -
Call to soldier on is just asking for desertions
Letters -
Capacity limits NHS-private influx
The private healthcare sector is buoyant, but limited capacity will prevent a 'large-scale' influx of NHS patients, industry analysts say. -
Cash boost allows breast screening to be extended
The Department of Health has confirmed that an additional £8m is to be allocated to the breast cancer screening programme to allow screening to be extended from next year to cover women aged between 65 and 70 .The extension of the mammography service will allow screening of an additional 400,000 women a year. There will also be an additional £100m DoH investment in cancer equipment, of which £40m will go towards scanners and computers in the next financial year. -
CHI reviews will grade trusts on governance
The Commission for Health Improvement has denied that it is under pressure to adapt its reviews to the 'traffic-light' performance monitoring system. -
Chief execs - stop penalising risktakers
Letters -
Christmas crackers
A quintessential part of the English landscape in any season, the eccentric is loved and teased in equal measure.But David Weeks says we have reason to envy them, too - they are happier and healthier than the rest of us -
Consultant at abuse scandal hospital in new probe
A consultant psychiatrist criticised for his 'passive' role in the Garlands Hospital patient abuse scandal in North Cumbria has been suspended from his management post. -
Days like this
Clinicians need to be involved in drawing up contracts under the internal market due to go live in April, according to NHS chief executive Duncan Nichol. In a letter to general managers sent at the Joint Consultants Committee's request, Mr Nichol says: 'This process will be vital in ensuring that providers' offers of service are both realistic and deliverable in 1991-92 and thereafter.' -
Dear Mel. . .
I have just read in the press that TV star Matthew Kelly of Stars In Their Eyes fame is to quit showbiz to become a psychiatrist. Do you think this is a good idea, and do you think any other celebrities might make good health professionals? -
Doctors' private clinic 'may worsen wait lists'
Concerns have been raised that a new Darlington private hospital, funded by a consortium of local consultants may worsen already lengthy waiting lists at the local trust. -
DoH staffing statistics are a propaganda excercise masking a worsening crisis
Letters -
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. -
Extra £1bn will help fund key NHS objectives
The English health service will have around £1bn of extra cash to implement the NHS plan next year, according to NHS Executive finance director Colin Reeves. -
Framework 'signals end of ageism'
The national service framework for elderly people, due to be published within weeks, will require the NHS to offer equal access to treatments and drugs regardless of age. -
Glaxo Wellcome man gets top BMA job in break with tradition
In a surprise move, one of the top directors from Glaxo Wellcome, who has no medical qualification, is to take over as secretary of the British Medical Association. -
Great Scot! Trust abolition could put NHS out of kilter
Enormous upheaval will be watched carefully by English managers -
Health inequalities show no sign of levelling off
Although disadvantaged families in Britain are benefiting from rising educational standards in schools and falling levels of unemployment, there has been no corresponding reduction in health inequalities, according to a report by the New Policy Institute published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The report, which compiles information from 50 indicators, found that the premature death rate among people aged under 65 continues to fall, but there are widening variations. The number of local a -
Housing services 'may be run by care trusts'
Housing services could be run by the NHS under new powers to be allocated to care trusts, it emerged last week. -
In Brief
NHS South East regional director Barbara Stocking, who was recently appointed temporary director of the NHS Modernisation Agency, will become director of the charity Oxfam when her six-month secondment ends in May. -
in person
Helen Lewis, an organisational development consultant with the strategic change unit at the Scottish Executive health department, has left to join Frontline Consultants as a senior consultant. -
Is housing too hot to handle?
There is surely a limit to the extra responsibilities the NHS can take on -
Jingle hells?
Being hooked up to the hospital radio station was once considered worse than being tied to an IV drip, but a renaissance in broadcast services may have patients reaching for the headphones. Janet Snell tunes in -
Mental health white paper will target patient rights
The long-awaited white paper on the Mental Health Act, due to be published on 19 December, is likely to signal a significant improvement in patients' rights - including better access to an advocate. -
Midwifery is stretched beyond expectations
Letters -
Misguided transfer of NHS scrutiny
Letters -
Modern times
It was a year of grand plans and private gestures. Mark Crail on how the millennium bugged the NHS -
Moderniser Page faces tribunal showdown
A clinical director of Northumbria Healthcare trust, whose chief executive, Sue Page, is a member of the NHS modernisation board, has resigned and is taking the trust to an employment tribunal. -
monitor
Just as your mind was beginning to make up that long list of well-intentioned new year's resolutions - get out more, take up jogging, run the marathon; damn it, get fit somehow - along comes the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine to make you think twice before you've even started. In the latest edition of said journal, two young scamps, Drs Sarah Anderson and Chris Johnson, present a chilling picture of what we once thought of as innocent, healthy recreation. 'Leisure pastimes are never -
More questions than answers
Analysing Health Policy Edited by Alison Hann Ashgate 206 pages £37.50 -
Nurse recruitment crisis hits vaccination targets
Vacancy rates for practice nurses in Tower Hamlets - one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK - have reached one in four. GPs say that with such high vacancy levels they will be struggling to reach vaccination and immunisation targets. Primary care group board member Dr Kambiz Boomla said: 'If you advertise for a practice nurse, you are lucky if you manage to get even one suitable candidate - things are hard. We are in an area with one of the highest rates of diabetes in the country, but b -
Nurses need to be practically able not academic
Letters -
Overview but no plan
Health Care UK Autumn 2000 The King's Fund Review of Health Policy Edited by John Appleby and Anthony Harrison King's Fund 72 pages £9.99 -
Patient proposals questioned
The NHS Confederation has cast doubt over key planks of the government's proposals for patient involvement in the health service. -
Pooling resources with the commercial sector
Letters -
RCN believes staff crisis will result in big pay boost
Nurses and midwives' leaders are hoping for a significant pay rise for the professions to be announced next week, in the light of a report highlighting the crisis in NHS recruitment. -
Scottish NHS plan will abolish trusts
Scotland's 28 hospital and primary care trusts are to be brought under health board control in a radical reorganisation at the heart of the Scottish health plan launched today. The move will end the purchaser-provider split in the Scottish NHS. -
Series debut with a bit of a buzz
HSJ Monographs Evidence-based Practice By Dr Martin Dawes To order call the hotline:01483-303017 22 pages £12.99 -
So you think you're normal?
Non-conformity -
Some like it hotter
Extremes of cold and heat have a deleterious effect on people's health, but climate change may bring healthier winters and more sickly summers. Dominique Florin takes the temperature -
The gnome service: a place to forget your cares
Ann Atkins, a painter, started the Gnome Reserve 21 years ago, with her husband Ron, on four acres in West Putford, North Devon, writes Joanna Lyall. -
The NVQ is a hard won proof of competency
Letters -
Unison chief slams government over modernisation
Unison deputy general secretary Keith Sonnet has accused the government of modernising public services 'at the expense of the workforce'. Mr Sonnet, appointed this week, was previously assistant general secretary of the union. He takes up his post on 1 January, replacing Dave Prentis who will take over as general secretary from Rodney Bickerstaffe, who is retiring. -
WEB WATCH
This is the very last Webwatch.When the column started in September 1996, Internet access was a rarity. Few people had seen the worldwide web, let alone used it for work. Most of us had trouble seeing its relevance. Now we are promised wired fridges that order the groceries and let you read e-mail over breakfast. -
What the spin doctor ordered
How do you cope if a sick celebrity lands in your hospital? Lynn Eaton finds out -
Whose view is it anyway?
'What's clear from consultation on the NHS plan is the need for robust mechanisms to ensure user involvement moves beyond the aspirational'
