Comment archive – Page 438
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Comment
Noel Plumridge on lessons from Northern Rock
Healthcare providers should not ignore the difficulties facing other sectors, writes Noel Plumridge
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Comment
Media Watch: for and against healthcare privatisation
HSJ readers will be well aware of the three-month battle to get health secretary Alan Johnson off the fence and spelling out his policy on the private sector.This week that battle spilled off the pages of HSJ and the Financial Times and into The Times and The Guardian. A coincidence? ...
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Comment
Department should explain itself on race
The new health secretary is passionate about tackling health inequalities. With race a central factor, he will be appalled at the catalogue of race equality failures at the Department of Health that the Commission for Racial Equality claims to have unearthed.
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Comment
Labour conference: localist messages do not cover a nasty whiff of central control
The speeches at Labour's annual conference mapping out the principles for Gordon Brown's stewardship of the NHS highlighted the tensions with which the new ministerial team is grappling.
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Comment
Michael White on this year's Labour conference
I filed this column, from Labour's Bournemouth conference, a little later than usual this week. Gordon Brown had brought the annual leader's speech forward by 24 hours (he is in such a hurry, that man) and I wanted to catch what he had to say.
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Comment
Cardiac telemedicine takes off
Cardiac telemedicine has moved decisively from pilot to practice. Joshua Rowe explains how it is revolutionising care and saving the NHS money
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Comment
Primary care risk-taking could end in disaster
Changes to primary care organisation suggested by the Confederation of British Industry could seriously damage the system, argues Martin McNicol
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Comment
Your Humble Servant on nurses and news from planet Monitor
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.
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Comment
Data on mental health patient safety must be presented accurately
Chris Heginbotham’s commitment to the well-being and safety of mental health inpatients is sincere and I share some of his concerns, but I must set the record straight about the more alarming aspects of the impression created by his recent interview, writes Louis Appleby
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Comment
Looky likey
Another high ranking medical looky likey this week. Chief medical officer and all round nice chap Professor Sir Liam Donaldson bears a striking resemblance, points out a HSJ colleague, to former Liberal Democrats leader and MP for Ross, Skye and Inverness West Charles Kenendy. What do readers think?
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Comment
All Our Yesterdays
October 1, 1954, Hospital and Social Service JournalA report by the Leeds City Medical Officer report on the city’s mental health services praised mental health social workers this week. ‘Nothing is too much trouble. Whether it is witnessing milk forms, taking youths and girls for interviews, helping and reassuring the ...
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Comment
Medical secretaries play a key role in the NHS
Media reports on problems in the NHS are mainly centred on the plight of medical and nursing staff and the way patient care is affected.However, there is a knock-on effect on other key staff in the NHS, who also work under immense pressure. I refer to medical secretaries and personal ...
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Comment
Pilots make all the difference
The article 'Pilots making little difference' states that, according to research, pilot projects that have focused on the government’s policy of shifting services from hospitals into the community have made little difference.In reality, far from achieving little, the pilots have helped identify key learnings that will enable NHS organisations to ...
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Comment
Dismissing improvement programmes misses the point
Alan Maynard's criticism of the quality improvement efforts under way for more than a decade in the NHS, and specifically of the role of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in that work, abounds with misunderstandings, write Stephen Thornton and Don Berwick
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Comment
Lisa Rodrigues on the traits of executives
Being a chief executive is a wonderful job for those with a well-developed sense of responsibility. I read somewhere that more leaders are firstborn children than any other family position and I can understand why. As the first child, you are automatically expected to take responsibility for your siblings. If, ...
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Leader
Time to come clean on the private sector
‘The role of independent providers under Gordon Brown is one of the most opaque areas of health policy’
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Comment
Media Watch
The papers are again keen to expose the 'scandal' of hospital food - this time the focus is on hospital kitchens. The Observer told readers of a 'searing indictment' of their cleanliness after government inspection reports revealed 'that breaches of food hygiene laws include infestations of mice and cockroaches, kitchen ...
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Comment
Emma Dent at the dentist
'Half an hour later I would emerge bleary-eyed, in pain and incapable of eating for days'
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Comment
Sophia Christie on facing up to diversity
'Her one-year-old's diet was two packets of crisps a day and a glass of milk'
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Comment
Michael White on panic politics
'I imagined patients queuing outside their local hospital, just like Northern Rock'