All Alastair McLellan articles – Page 5
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Leader
Save now, pay later: the pension cuts folly
Not for nothing was public service pensions commission chair Lord Hutton placed at number 28 in HSJ’s list of the people with the most influence on the NHS last year.
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Leader
High trust, robust challenge and a firm grip are key to success
Failing NHS organisations get much more attention than successful ones, despite the fact that the latter far outnumber the former.
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LeaderNicholson’s power is unrivalled – so is his responsibility to lead
This week is expected to see the publication of the revised Health and Social Care Bill. Health secretary Andrew Lansley has written that it will contain more than 150 amendments. It would be only mildly surprising to find one of them enshrining in law Sir David Nicholson’s position as NHS ...
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LeaderThe government’s changes will only delay the tough decisions
One overarching conclusion can be reached from the changes to the government’s reforms: there will be a continuation of the planning blight that has afflicted the health service since the decision to scrap primary care trusts without thinking through the implications.
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LeaderReform changes may threaten what little progress is being made
What is the real impact of GP consortium commissioning on NHS services? Not the claim and counter-claim of the political battle, which is largely focused on imagined utopias or dystopias of the medium term, but the change being experienced by patients and staff?
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LeaderThe NHS must plan for a decade of austerity
After decades of underinvestment, the NHS required the turbocharging provided by the 2002 Budget. The resulting flow of funds did much good. However, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight many would argue the money could have been spent more efficiently – although there would be considerable dispute about what should ...
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LeaderThe CQC is feeling the pressure as rising uncertainty takes its toll
There has been so much focus on the future role of Monitor that almost no attention has been paid to how the NHS’s other regulator, the Care Quality Commission, is coping with the challenges of reform and tighter budgets.
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LeaderCelebrate, don't denigrate: the case for management is clear
“Leadership and management in the NHS matter and the role of managers should be celebrated and not undermined.”
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LeaderService sweats over plans B, C and D as pause takes its toll
The NHS is paying a heavy, although largely unseen, price for the “pause” in the government’s health reforms.
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LeaderBenefits lost as C-word remains a taboo
Do you remember the debate over the future of the US healthcare system that dominated the last Presidential election?
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LeaderCameron phones friends to help answer tricky reform questions
It is a year since the general election that brought the coalition to power and Andrew Lansley to Richmond House.
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LeaderPCTs are dead. Long live the PCT cluster?
Here’s a quiz for you. What do the following numbers - 581, 331, 162, 62 - represent?
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LeaderInquiry adds to the toxic reform mix
Cynthia Bower, chief executive of the Care Quality Commission, appeared at the Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust inquiry on Monday. Ms Bower was previously chief executive of NHS West Midlands, responsible for monitoring the troubled trust.
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LeaderStraggling organisations set to slip into crisis
The popular perception is that the fortunes of the NHS rise and fall on a national basis. HSJ readers will know the true picture is one of variation – often stark – between organisations and regions.
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LeaderAndrew Lansley: an enemy of reform?
HSJ’s increasingly unfashionable, strained and conditional support for Andrew Lansley continuing as health secretary is predicated on two beliefs.
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LeaderImperial's problems are the first rumblings of a perfect storm
HSJ was once asked by the health secretary what could prevent his reforms from continuing. We suggested a major hospital getting into significant financial trouble and those troubles being successfully linked by opponents to his reforms.
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LeaderWhy Andrew Lansley should stay - and why he might go
Andrew Lansley must go. That is the demand of many of the opponents of the government’s health reforms. They are wrong.
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LeaderTransparency tsar could spark a revolution
When Andrew Lansley became health secretary he gave a series of presentations which all began by stressing how the new government would increase patients’ control by giving them more choice and information.
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LeaderAction on the ground is proving as fascinating as Westminster tussles
There are two narratives running in parallel on the current NHS reforms. Within Whitehall and Westminster and among the health policy chattering classes debate rages over the exact intention of each clause of the Health Bill.
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LeaderOne more sign that we may miss the expertise of PCTs
While the NHS accelerates towards an uncertain future, primary care trusts are braking hard on activity.