Comment archive – Page 398

  • Comment

    Jon Restell on an NHS Christmas list for Santa

    2008-12-18T01:00:00Z

    For this column, I am going to cheat by giving you something I have been working on for a while - my Christmas wish list.

  • Comment

    Your Humble Servant: an NHS Christmas

    2008-12-18T01:00:00Z

    To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Manager in a manger

  • Comment

    Andrea Sutcliffe on PCT provider services

    2008-12-17T09:00:00Z

    In recent weeks, I have been contacted by increasing numbers of chairs and non-executives who are struggling with the governance arrangements for the separation of their provider services.

  • Comment

    Mark Simmonds on developing young clinical leaders

    2008-12-16T01:00:00Z

    The profile of NHS clinical leadership has risen considerably in recent times, but the concept is not a new one. Arguably, it rests at the heart of working as a doctor.

  • Comment

    Maggie Rae on the role of GPs

    2008-12-15T01:00:00Z

    Yes, they have won again. The GPs have excelled in our local area survey. Each year, like the rest of the country, we participate in what is known as the place survey.

  • Comment

    Jenny Rogers on friendships

    2008-12-15T01:00:00Z

    A holiday in deepest Norfolk has brought home some lessons about friendship. In a village you do not have the lazy luxury of making friends who are identikit portraits of yourself: same profession, age, income, newspaper - and prejudices.

  • Comment

    Hilary Thomas on clinical-managerial networks

    2008-12-15T01:00:00Z

    I have had the worst cold I can remember for some years - and every time I get on the Tube somebody sneezes on me. The economy is depressing, the weather has been depressing and the built-in obsolescence of collapsible umbrellas convinces me their manufacturers did not consider the eventuality ...

  • Comment

    Sandy Watson on NHS performance management

    2008-12-12T01:00:00Z

    NHS boards have very clear roles. They must ensure governance arrangements are sound, probity and propriety are to the fore, a strategic steer is given to the executive team and staff, the executives are held to account and supported, and there are clear and effective performance management mechanisms.

  • Leader

    NHS surplus robbery risks a return to financial instability

    2008-12-11T09:00:00Z

    This week the NHS was told part of the price it will have to pay for the collapse of the economy, as it bid a fond farewell to £1bn of its £1.8bn surplus.

  • Comment

    Your Humble Servant on NHS co-payments

    2008-12-11T09:00:00Z

    To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Co-payment cunning

  • Comment

    Sophia Christie on becoming a world class commissioner

    2008-12-11T09:00:00Z

    Every primary care trust is participating in the first stage of the world class commissioning assurance process. World class commissioning is not the little brother of foundation trust development, or even Big Brother, although it can seem like that.

  • Comment

    Media Watch: public health budgets

    2008-12-11T01:00:00Z

    Those seeking to defend public health budgets amid financial turmoil were unlikely to take heart from the press this week.

  • Comment

    Michael White on the NHS in recession

    2008-12-11T01:00:00Z

    A rough old trade is politics, as most MPs can confirm. All the same, I felt a bit sorry for Andrew Lansley the other week when he was beaten up for saying 'on many counts recession can be good for us'.

  • Comment

    Improving patient safety: advice for NHS boards

    2008-12-10T09:00:00Z

    Institute for Healthcare Improvement president and chief executive Donald Berwick talks to Stockport foundation trust chair Robina Shah about the role of NHS boards in improving patient safety and quality of care

  • Comment

    A future for general practice

    2008-12-09T09:00:00Z

    Issues such as GP extended hours (where clumsy government handling of the issue and stubborn BMA behaviour pushed the issue to the wire) and the procurement of GP-led health centres (GPLHCs) encapsulate the tensions from which GP services will be shaped in the next 10 years.

  • Comment

    Ken Jarrold on Barack Obama the manager

    2008-12-08T01:00:00Z

    For students of leadership and management, these are interesting times. Two very different people, in very different worlds, have been teaching those open to learning.

  • Comment

    David Lee on the prison mental health dilemma

    2008-12-08T01:00:00Z

    Not only do mental health trusts work with some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, it sometimes falls to us to support unfashionable causes too.

  • Comment

    Neil Goodwin on coping with recession in the NHS

    2008-12-08T01:00:00Z

    Recession. It's what everyone is talking about and it will affect you at some point. The boom years are now drawing to a close and public sector budgets are about to see their biggest squeeze in more than a decade.

  • Comment

    David Woodhead on an NHS revolution

    2008-12-08T01:00:00Z

    'All that is solid', wrote Marx in 1848, 'melts into air'. He was reflecting on what happens when the certainties that give our life structure and meaning are inverted.

  • Leader

    Baby P: beware the mob gathering outside your gates

    2008-12-04T09:00:00Z

    Anyone working in the health service should fear the implications of the public baying for the blood of social workers and health staff in the wake of the death of Baby P.