Comment archive – Page 416
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Leader
Ethnic minority board quotas are off target
HSJ's nationwide survey on the experiences of black and minority ethnic staff in the NHS shows the service has a long way to go to make its worthy platitudes on equality and diversity a reality.
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Comment
Media Watch: food terror
We're all doomed. From the day our mothers sipped their third cup of coffee while pregnant (Daily Mail) to the time we ignored the best before date on that pate at the back of the fridge (The Observer) to the decision to ditch the bran flakes for one of those ...
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Comment
Michael White on IT in the NHS
You were probably far too busy to notice Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg urging Gordon Brown the other day to 'distinguish between good public spending and bad public spending… By not wasting £13bn on an NHS computer system that doesn't work'.
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Comment
Sophia Christie on the NHS and the credit crunch
We seem to be officially heading into recession. Even if it is shallow and short, this will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable.
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Comment
Charles Kaye and Michael Howlett on mental health in the slow lane
A number of high-profile news items about mental health have hit the headlines recently.
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Comment
Achieving 18 weeks: engaging with NHS managers and clinicians
As the NHS hits the government's 18-week referral to treatment target early, national implementation director Philippa Robinson, a trained nurse, explains the important role clinical leadership has played in the achievement
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Comment
Hilary Thomas on NHS top-ups
I approach the subject of NHS top-ups with some trepidation. The issue is complex and there are no easy answers. Considering it from the cancer perspective, I will attempt to throw light into some dark corners of the debate.
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Comment
Stephen Ramsden on patient safety's missing link
I remain vexed by the question ‘how can we engage junior doctors in patient safety?’
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Comment
Alastair Henderson on the NHS staff survey
The largest of its kind, the NHS staff survey last year captured the feelings of 156,000 employees from all 391 trusts in England.
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Comment
Steve Barnett on world class NHS leaders
It is not hard to think of bad leaders. A recent poll named figures from Stalin to Vlad the Impaler who score badly in the popularity stakes, while Steve McClaren, 'the wally with the brolly', springs to my mind.
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Comment
Mark Britnell on world class commissioning so far
Morituri te salutamus, as the gladiators said in Roman amphitheatres: We who are about to die salute you.
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Comment
Sandy Watson on how the NHS can help young people
At any one time, there are about 35,000 young people in Scotland who are not in education, employment or training. Of these, 6,000 are aged 16, 9,000 aged 17, 12,000 aged 18, and 8,000 aged 19. Men are more likely to fall into this group than women.
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CommentAngela Greatley on the Mental Health Act
From 3 November, most parts of the long-awaited and often feared 2007 Mental Health Act will be implemented. For the NHS, the new act presents major challenges by extending the scope of compulsory powers and by creating some new safeguards for those subject to them.
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Leader
Hold your nerve - equality is not an expensive indulgence
This week's HSJ special edition on health inequalities looks at the causes, complexities, arguments and options that underpin this most intractable of policy issues.
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Comment
Michael Marmot on eliminating social injustice in health
Glasgow had a little more publicity than it might have welcomed when the report of the World Health Organisation's commission on social determinants of health, which I chaired, was published in August.
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Comment
Your Humble Servant on foundation trusts
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Money, Money, Monitor
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Comment
Media Watch: healthcare reviews
Unlike certain colleagues, health secretary Alan Johnson has never been invited onto a billionaire's gin palace. 'Trawlers occasionally, but never yachts,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
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Comment
Michael White on pharmaceutical price regulation
I am indebted to Fred Curzon, 7th Earl Howe and veteran Tory health spokesman in the Lords, for a little gem of a debate in the upper house the other evening. It was doubtless neglected because of the Yachtgate affair in Corfu and relative trivia like the global financial collapse.
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Comment
Kevin Fickenscher on robotics and patient care
Robotics in healthcare is revolutionising the way medical personnel work together and how patients are treated.
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Comment
Richard Knowles on NHS command and control
Command and control is a term that is increasingly used in the current target-driven healthcare climate.