Obama and Jade Goody topped the pre-Budget headlines this week, but last week ended with two stories of interest to NHS managers: the first trusts to register with the Care Quality Commission and the NHS staff survey.
Most of the CQC coverage picked on Mid Staffs and Milton Keynes, but former NHS West Midlands chief executive Cynthia Bower - now in charge at the CQC - was attacked in The Guardian by a Mid Staffs campaigner.
Despite the government’s valiant attempts to put a positive spin on largely positive results from the staff survey, most of the nationals of course led on the negatives. The Daily Telegraph went with “NHS staff say they don’t have time to do job properly” and the Financial Times with “NHS staff lack faith in quality of care”.
The Swindon Advertiser bucked the trend with the unprovocative headline: “NHS better place to work, say staff”. But well done anyway to NHS Wiltshire.
The NHS IT programme seems always about to have its sweets stolen by the school bully. Just when it was starting to get the odd positive headline about the summary care record roll-out, along came The Guardian with “Delays with £12.7bn NHS software program bring it close to collapse”, covering claims the Lorenzo software at Morecambe Bay Trust is not going as smoothly as the government would have us believe. Now there’s a shock.
This week President Obama finally got his way on health reform. The UK media was largely pleased, except for Nile Gardiner of The Daily Telegraph who called it a “dark day for freedom in America”. The 109 ensuing comments online were quite tasty.
Jade Goody died a year ago from cancer - marked by general tabloid muckraking and a more fitting legacy in The Independent : “How Jade Goody helped me beat cancer”.
No comments yet