External contributors – Page 272
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Comment
Sandy Watson on the need for community engagement
Community engagement is a fundamental part of community planning. We must listen to what the public has to say about levels of service and then take action to improve performance.
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Comment
Simon Bird on whether clinicians are always the best leaders
It seems rather counter-cultural right now to question the drive for clinicians to take up leadership positions. However, the assumptions behind the drive, while compelling and applicable to some, should not be extrapolated across whole professions.
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Comment
Steve Onyett on medical leadership
The Darzi review has shed new light on the challenge of letting go of central control. The idea that staff can be clinicians, partners and leaders is an engaging way of conveying that leadership needs to be widely dispersed.
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Comment
Neil Goodwin on leadership lessons from David Lloyd George
I was delighted to see David Lloyd George listed as one of the most influential people in the history of the NHS - we can learn a lot from his leadership experience.
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Comment
Helen Bevan on paths to improvement
The title of Lord Darzi's report - High Quality Care for All - proclaims the significant and welcome focus on quality improvement in the next phase of NHS reform.
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Comment
Peter Reader on integrating healthcare
Lord Darzi's next stage review contains the seeds of potentially the greatest revolution the NHS has seen since it was formed - a commitment to seek expressions of interest to run 'integrated care pilots'.
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Comment
Noel Plumridge on problems with PFI accounting rules
Rules, they say, are made to be broken. There was never anything sacrosanct about Gordon Brown's fiscal rule, which has restricted public sector debt to less than 40 per cent of national income.
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Comment
Your Humble Servant on testing GPs
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Top of the docs
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Comment
Michael White on facing up to obesity
Amid the hype over Labour's defeat in Glasgow East, I suspect the most important consequence of the by-election will not be the ejection of Gordon Brown.
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Comment
Media Watch: taking on obesity
As health secretary Alan Johnson packed up for the summer, he left a stern warning about the dangers of overindulgence.
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Comment
Paul Stanton on NHS boards' duty to the public
The good of the public must be served ahead of NHS boards’ narrowly defined organisational interests, placing them as servants of the community need and not its masters.
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Comment
Dave Flinton on attracting students to radiography
The Department of Health must work closer with universities if the aims of its new cancer plan are to be achieved.
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Comment
John Coakley on improving the patient experience
How can we improve customer care in the NHS? It is obviously important to seek the views of users of the service, its staff and the general public.
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Comment
Julia Riley on care of the dying
The Department of Health's end of life care strategy published earlier this month pledged to allow more people with terminal illnesses to choose where they die. Clinicians at the Royal Marsden have made this possible through a pilot scheme
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Comment
Rowan Myron on implementing the Mental Capacity Act
The requirements of the Mental Capacity Act are vitally important for those in the health and social care sectors, but they are taking root too slowly on the front line.
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Comment
Jenny Rogers on the pursuit of happiness
A crazily affluent friend takes delivery of a Burberry handbag for which there has allegedly been a three-month waiting list. The price is roughly the same as the average British worker's monthly salary.
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Comment
Maggie Rae on lunchtime networking
Did you know four out of five of us do not get properly away from our desks during our working day? Shocking isn't it?
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Comment
Simon Jones on the future of the health service in Wales
Wednesday 16 July saw two important events in the Senedd in Cardiff. The first was health minister Edwina Hart's announcement of her conclusions following the consultation on the future structure of the health service in Wales.
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Comment
Media Watch: bonus scheme for surgeons
'It's a stitch-up,' shouted the Daily Star, one of many to report on plans for a pilot bonus scheme for surgeons at Imperial College London Healthcare trust.
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Comment
Michael White on palliative care
Eleven years ago a good friend died of lung cancer in the palliative ward of a London hospital. Since the operation(s) had gone wrong and he was only 62, it wasn't ideal.