All Blogs articles – Page 9
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Blogs
Don't believe everything you read...
Thumbing through the Department of Health response to Francis, End Game was shocked to learn that the government had lost all confidence in the General Medical Council and was proposing to transfer the medical revalidation programme to NHS England.“We are now at the right point for transferring the programme to ...
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Blogs
A chicken and horse situation
Whenever there’s a big policy announcement, End Game always gets deluged with preposterous responses from PRs keen to get a mention on these pages.This week the honours go to the union Unite, for the superb mixed metaphors contained in its verdict on the government’s response to the Francis inquiry.Head of ...
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Blogs
Profound disappointment
HSJ hacks were eagerly awaiting the final version of guidance on safe staffing levels from the chief nursing officer and the National Quality Board, despite obtaining a draft almost a week before publication.You see, the leaked version ended with a tantalising question from one anonymous editor: “Do we need to ...
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Blogs
Why do so few leaders speak out about disastrous changes?
Not enough leaders stand their ground when bad changes are imposed on the NHS, but good leadership means having the courage to speak out, says Blair McPherson.
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Blogs
Lessons from Co-op Bank: how much should the chair know?
The criticism of former Co-operative Bank chair Paul Flowers overlooks the benefits of boards operating with a non-expert chair
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Blogs
Flailed hedges
It’s every NHS chief executive’s worst nightmare: becoming embroiled in a local scandal where vulnerable local residents have come to harm in an obscure bit of their organisation they probably haven’t thought about in while.Spare a thought then for the folk at Devon Partnership Trust. The Plymouth Herald reports that ...
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Blogs
Party time
Special End Game love goes to the comms firm which got in early with our first Christmas party invitation this year. In the seasonal spirit of goodwill, we won’t name it.Their bash takes place on 26 November – for those of you who are no good at maths, that’s very ...
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Blogs
Jermey Hunt has jumped the shark
A new prison sentence for wilful neglect is an unnecessary gimmick
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Blogs
Monitor-vember
End Game has little interest in charity, so don’t try it on.But we were forced admit that Monitor press officer Sonya Cullington brightened up what may otherwise have risked being a turgid morning press conference about the regulator’s review of walk-in centre closures by wearing a moustache.What japes! It was ...
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Blogs
Your 18 week waits: September 2013 data
Interactive maps of local NHS waits around England, showing the pressures and one year waits, with links to all the detail by organisation.
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Blogs
The menace of the salami slice
The image of salami slicing has long haunted public servants as they have seen their budgets whittled down over successive years.However, last week’s HSJ Summit event was treated to a new metaphor, that of sausage making. End Game was slightly baffled at the time but we believe it to have ...
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Blogs
Waiting times steady in September
The position on English waiting times remained steady in September. But nearly half the country’s one year waiters were reported at just one hospital.
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Blogs
Stony silence
Savings plans! Contentious stuff! What do we cut, sorry, do more efficiently?Each year HSJ asks each of the 140 general hospital trusts in England about the size and shape of their savings programme.What, then, are we to make of our interactions with one trust that will remain nameless (not really, ...
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Blogs
Why do we keep paying off the same senior managers?
Making managers redundant over and over again is costing the NHS a fortune
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Blogs
Gallic abstraction
Few NHS England board members are better versed in the pithy soundbite than the exuberant Tim Kelsey.Getting your message across to Fleet Street means talking in simple, grandiose terms and repeating your main points in case the dozy journos are a bit hungover and slow on the uptake, as Mr ...
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Blogs
Vote of confidence
Complaints, as we all know, are taken extremely seriously in the NHS as they are a valuable and cherished source of information from the people who matter most.So we were intrigued to read the Department of Health’s latest report on complaints it has dealt with over the past few years.In ...
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Blogs
Absolute gibberish
End Game will normally rush to defend ministers against accusations that they inhabit a mad parallel universe, but we did have to concede the carpers might have a point when we read a recent Department of Health diary of forthcoming press events.There were the usual speeches at worthy events, but ...
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Blogs
Halloween is over, so stop the witch hunt
Calls to introduce laws for prosecuting people for failing to report abuses misses the point – people in positions of authority are not being held accountable for cover-ups.
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Blogs
The C word
End Game realises that, broadly speaking, it is out of order to make observations about very successful women by reference to their husbands – or to intrude into family life (Press Complaints Commission code point 3, for media regulation fans).But we do feel the need to highlight one tweet by ...
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Blogs
Change the 'delay, deny, defend' complaints culture
A new report following the failings of Mid Staffs should force NHS organisations to confront patient complaints