Health Service Journal
Your Humble Servant
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Your Humble Servant: the silence of the slaughtered lamb
8-Mar-2012
Cynthia, take a Bow. -
Your Humble Servant: the rallying cry for 2012
5 January 2012
2012 is the year of the contract. Go back to your offices and prepare for contracting. -
Your Humble Servant: healthy fun for all the NHS family
6 October 2011
What will be this year’s Christmas stocking must have: Mid Staffs Cluedo, PFI Monopoly or Liberating the NHS Scrabble? -
Your Humble Servant: survival of the fittest in the NHS
8-Sep-2011
Perhaps we should look back to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to see who’ll survive in the dog-eat-dog world of health policy. -
Your Humble Servant: je t’aime NHS
30 June 2011
Cameron’s courting of the NHS is more sickly than sweet. -
Your humble servant: can you hear me, Andrew Lansley?
19 May 2011
From being everywhere to suddenly being nowhere, your humble servant goes in search of the health secretary. -
Your humble servant: Lansley live - for one month only
14 April 2011
Time is running out to get a ticket to the Andrew Lansley show, where the only certainty is there are no certainties. -
Your humble servant: the spectre of Stalin looms over year end
17 March 2011
It’s difficult to make end of financial year decisions when pain aligns so closely with pleasure. -
Your Humble Servant: A twit tweets
24 February 2011
Separating the tweet from the chafe around the blogosphere, a twit begins to tweet. -
Your Humble Servant: health mogul
10 February 2011
‘Family doctor to health mogul? It’s what my patients want for me’ -
A Christmas Dorrell
20-Dec-2010
Good King Dorrell did look out on the feast beneath him, With Andrew lay round about, deeply fried by Stephen… -
Your Humble Servant: home front
4 November 2010
‘We’re invading your privacy at home, and turning it into the outpatient clinic’ -
'La La is throwing his limited political capital into reshuffling bureaucracy'
21 October 2010
It’s all getting rather confusing with La La Lansley. Is he the mild mannered janitor who turns in to Hong Kong Phooey, or is he just the janitor for Stephen Dorrell? -
'I am now chairing the Andrew Lansley Action Squad'
23 September 2010
‘As you can imagine it’s a busy time with new directives coming thick and slow. The team members have become adept at scratching their heads, then armpits and finally groins as they try to work out how to operationalise the sophisticated actions that arise from the no top-down reorganisation reorganisation strategy’ -
'Primary care trusts? Send in the marines'
2 September 2010
So this is what it feels like. I’m managing along, minding my own business, when along comes Andrew D Lansley (Dudya to his mates), who liberates me. -
'La la Lansley has abolished the people who monitor us'
12 August 2010
‘There is £80bn out there to be carved up between ourselves and the GPs. Well, surely that makes everyone a winner now?’ -
Your Humble Servant: Going La La
22 July 2010
‘Up pops La La at the Royal Marsden Hospital, in Parliament and on Newsnight saying he had no idea it would come to this’ -
Your Humble Servant: Handy Andy
1 July 2010
‘It’s been a few months now, and we’ve had no new strategy, plan or output. I can only assume you’ve been stocking up on additional inadequates so that you can get rid of them easily as cost savings to show off to the new ministers’ -
Your Humble Servant: Coabolition
10 June 2010
‘So what is the opposite of “top down”? Bottom up. And how do we tend to regard things that come out of bottoms?’ -
Your Humble Servant: NHS regime change
27 May 2010
‘The Major Incident Plan has been implemented as the first effects of the new regime are felt. All leave has been cancelled and we are making do as best we can’ -
Your Humble Servant: electioneering
6 May 2010
‘We have survived another election campaign with no one promising to save or close us’ -
Your Humble Servant: how can boards fail?
8 April 2010
‘Could Alistair Darling make a more impressive dent in public borrowing if he didn’t have to shell out for boards?’ -
Your Humble Servant: lights, camera, casualty
18 March 2010
‘The crying was spot on. As you talked with humility about the demise of Mrs Smith, the tears that began rolling down your cheeks captured the emotion and sincerity of our apology perfectly’ -
Your Humble Servant: a strange whiff of familiarity...
4 March 2010
You’ve never had it so good! -
Your Humble Servant: weapons of self-destruction
4 February 2010
If GPs would not stop referring patients to hospital, we had to get rid of both. -
Your Humble Servant: manifest nonsense
14 January 2010
‘Imagine - under the Tories, we are going to have new NHS organisations called foundation trusts, a tariff payment process, a choose and book system, a quality and outcomes framework for paying GPs and a formula that channels NHS funds to poorer areas’ -
Your Humble Servant: regulation...
10 December 2009
‘What’s important is that if you’re crap you own up and if you’re fabulous you live to fail another day’ -
Your Humble Servant: election gamble
26 November 2009
‘There is no easy or predictable way of knowing how to please Labour and live to tell the tale’ -
Your Humble Servant: Andy Burnsley
29 October 2009
‘Andrew Lansley on the other hand has a real problem. It’s the same one that Chris Smith and Frank Dobson had back in 1997. Like them, Andrew doesn’t have a health policy, because he is using his opponent’s one.’ -
Your Humble Servant: McKinsey, McJected
8 October 2009
‘Imagine if you are in your umpteenth meeting in a hospital or PCT or SHA somewhere, with a McKinseyite costing your directorate’s annual savings plan being taught the McKinsey way of saving the world. You are going to be feeling a little dubious about it all’ -
Your Humble Servant: NHS carbon reduction
17 September 2009
‘The NHS could immediately achieve much larger savings if the SHAs, Monitor and CQC stopped emitting the whole time… after all there is carbon in flatulence isn’t there?’ -
Your Humble Servant on the future of NHS technology
27 August 2009
‘Just imagine, you’ll log in to check out the rash in your groin, and “Amazon recommends” will also tell you how other people rated their experience with rashes’ -
Your Humble Servant attends an NHS disciplinary appeal hearing
6-Aug-2009
‘Between them they will have conspired to identify an incompetent who needs to be dispatched, and then utterly fail to put together a case, identify relevant evidence, or present it in a way that can land a caress, let alone a punch, on the miscreant’s credibility’ -
Your Humble Servant on private lessons
16 July 2009
We are all still reeling from the shock news of Mark Britnell’s sudden departure for pastures more remunerative. Thankfully he has left us with a commissioning sector which no one else in the world can match… and oddly none has sought to do so. -
Your Humble Servant on the NHS reshuffle
25 June 2009
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: NHS reshuffle -
Your Humble Servant on appropriate attire
14 May 2009
It can be hard to decide how to dress for a dress-down, informal bonding session with colleagues, as ours gamely proved. -
Your Humble Servant rides with the new Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
23 April 2009
‘System alignment is everyone agreeing with the DH that these are four bloody good principles’ -
Humble Servant bids the Healthcare Commission adieu
9 April 2009
‘We will all miss the traffic lights and star ratings, its mission to condemn and flagellate, and the valuable role it has fulfilled for the Department of Health in shutting stable doors after horses have bolted’ -
Your Humble Servant on management training
26 March 2009
‘We concluded that we would need Stalin’s ruthlessness, Patton’s brilliance, Machiavelli’s cunning and Robert Maxwell’s sophistry’ -
Your Humble Servant on the NHS operating framework
22-Jan-2009
‘Baldrick, please, when it’s just us, you can call me Minister’ -
Your Humble Servant: an NHS Christmas
18-Dec-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Manager in a manger -
Your Humble Servant on NHS co-payments
11-Dec-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Co-payment cunning -
Your Humble Servant: clinician questions
27-Nov-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: How hard can it be? -
Your Humble Servant on foundation trusts
30-Oct-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Money, Money, Monitor -
Your Humble Servant on party conferences
16-Oct-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: His-Tory lesson -
Your Humble Servant offers tips on avoiding meetings
2-Oct-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: If not now, when? -
Your Humble Servant on the NHS Constitution
11-Sep-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Constipated Constitution -
Your Humble Servant on co-payments and co-operation
28-Aug-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRE: No-payment? -
Your Humble Servant on Chinese whispers
14-Aug-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul ServantRe: Chinese whispers -
Your Humble Servant on testing GPs
31-Jul-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Top of the docs -
Your Humble Servant takes a look at Tory targets
17-Jul-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Outcomes, schmoutcomes -
Your Humble Servant in 1948
3-Jul-2008
Dear Lord Donald of WiseIt is my humble duty and sincere pleasure to present to you this first report of the General Hospital board of management for the National Health Service. -
Your Humble Servant on saying no
19-Jun-2008
Your humble servantTo: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Saying no -
Your Humble Servant: leaving the NHS
22-May-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Don't pay out, look up -
Your Humble Servant on getting to grips with nurses
8-May-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRE: Go with the Flo -
Your Humble Servant at the FT
24-Apr-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: FT fantastic -
Your Humble Servant celebrates a record profit for the NHS
10-Apr-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Bonanza -
Your Humble Servant on Nicholson's blog
27-Mar-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: blogs and Zogs -
Your Humble Servant: carry on nurses
13-Mar-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Ooh you are awful, but I like you -
Your Humble Servant: the Fresh Approach to Cash Alternatives Team
28-Feb-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveDear Don, as you can imagine, GPs are very agitated at the moment. -
Your Humble Servant's NHS Diamond 60 suggestions
14-Feb-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Diamond geezers -
Your Humble Servant: democratic ravings
31-Jan-2008
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Moooo -
Your Humble Servant: the operating framework
9-Jan-2008
I checked every envelope and couldn't find David Nicholson's personal Christmas card to you. But I did find the operating framework for the NHS in England 2008-09 in your e-mail. -
Your Humble Servant goes Christmas shopping
20-Dec-2007
I hadn't noticed personal shopper in my list of duties on my job description, but am happy to report that I have been able to get all the presents from you for the people on your list. -
Your Humble Servant: a glimpse of the future NHS
6-Dec-2007
The strangest thing happened to me during my recent MRI scan. Some sort of power surge occurred and the magnets went berserk. I don't really understand the physics, but the upshot was that time folded and I slipped through a vortex in time and space to find myself in 2068. -
Your Humble Servant: world class commissioning
22-Nov-2007
World class commissioning, world class commissioning, world class commissioning, commission de classe du monde, world class commissioning, world class commissioning, world class commissioning, world class commissioning. -
Your Humble Servant on the annual health check ratings
8-Nov-2007
We are all terribly proud of the huge improvement we have achieved in the annual health check under your leadership. The fair and fair rating shows just how far we have come in five years. Surely the next stop is foundation trust status? -
Your Humble Servant: Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells
25-Oct-2007
Whoever said the British had no stomach for public executions? Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust has demonstrated just how popular they can be. -
Your Humble Servant: the dreaded healthcheck
11-Oct-2007
It's that time of year again when we all have our excuses ready to explain away the annual healthcheck. The Healthcare Commission team are practising their best po faces by seeing who can best disguise any sign of pleasure while having a butt plug pushed to the max. -
Your Humble Servant on nurses and news from planet Monitor
26-Sep-2007
The Department of Health’s main drive is to get the nurses not to be so grotty, while on planet Monitor they are celebrating a multi-million-pound foundation trust surplus. -
Your Humble Servant: do as I say
20-Sep-2007
To: Don Wise, chief executive -
Your Humble Servant: Hamish Meldrum on the GP stall
13-Sep-2007
To Don Wise, chief executive -
Your Humble Servant: The Darzi Ultimatum
31-Aug-2007
‘I know the director of nursing was impressed that you poked her’ -
Your Humble Servant: the Confed conference
21-Jun-2007
'The highlight will of course be Nigel and Gill doing the I'm More Important Than You foxtrot' -
Your Humble Servant: grand theft NHS
1-Jan-2007
Dear Don‘Bullies who threaten NHS staff will be shown the red card’ press release from the DoH finally confirms what we have suspected since February.
