MARK CRAIL

News
WEB WATCH
2000-12-14T00:00:00
This is the very last Webwatch.When the column started in September 1996, Internet access was a rarity. Few people had seen the worldwide web, let alone used it for work. Most of us had trouble seeing its relevance. Now we are promised wired fridges that order the groceries and let ...
News
Modern times
2000-12-14T00:00:00
It was a year of grand plans and private gestures. Mark Crail on how the millennium bugged the NHS
News
WEB WATCH
2000-12-07T00:00:00
If your nest egg is tied up in the NHS Pensions Agency, you may not be happy to discover that it managed a 5.6 per cent cut in the efficiency with which it used its resources last year, and that it is still only half way through reviewing the cases ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-11-30T00:00:00
Medical school heads are having kittens at the idea that doctors could be churned through their august institutions in four years rather than five.So imagine how they would react to the suggestion that you could learn it all in 24 hours - and without having to get your hands all ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-11-23T00:00:00
'Fog everywhere.Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. . . Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-11-16T00:00:00
Where do the media get all those clinical research stories from - and why do so many medical breakthroughs occur on a Friday?
News
WEB WATCH
2000-11-09T00:00:00
As paramedics cut away the remains of the wrecked vehicle, a voice-over intones: 'The nearest hospital is 20 minutes away - and she only has 10 minutes to live.' The picture pans across to take in a descending helicopter. 'The air ambulance will have her there in five.'
News
WEB WATCH
2000-11-02T00:00:00
Should you ever be in Minneapolis, you could do worse than while away a few hours at the Museum of Questionable Devices. Happily, those of us unlikely ever to cross its threshold can examine the Battle Creek vibratory chair, McGregor rejuvenator and much more besides from the comfort of our ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-10-26T00:00:00
Poring over reports and attending hospital meetings doesn't sound like fun? You'd be surprised. . . Those are the words of trust nonexecutive Pauline Mistry. She goes on to explain how her role at Oxford's Radcliffe Hospitals trust involves 'sorting out the cock-ups' and 'disagreeing with some of the things ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-10-12T00:00:00
Prepare to be deluged with formulaic and yet terribly well organised campaigns. This month's good cause is breast cancer, November's will be bowel cancer. And who could take exception to campaigns for more and better services?
News
WEB WATCH
2000-10-05T00:00:00
We all love protocols and guidelines. They're so New NHS, and they provide the perfect defence when something goes wrong. Now, thanks to the publishers of those old treeware-based Guidelines and Guidelines in Practice, you can consult them without ever having to visit the hospital library.
News
WEB WATCH
2000-09-28T00:00:00
Are you one of the 200 or so website editors working for NHS organisations that the Department of Health believes to be out there somewhere? If so, you may have mixed feelings about the sudden interest the centre has developed in your activities.
News
WEB WATCH
2000-09-21T00:00:00
Though firmly under the umbrella of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, and largely funded by it, the National Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Deaths is, in fact, an independent charity backed by a range of royal colleges and other organisations.
News
WEB WATCH
2000-09-14T00:00:00
Anyone who has ever had a hand in writing a book will know of the frustratingly long lead-in times and tortuous editorial processes involved in that particular arm of publishing.
News
WEB WATCH
2000-09-07T00:00:00
You may think that the advent of care trusts commissioning and managing both health and social care will herald an NHS take-over of all those funny social services people.
News
WEB WATCH
2000-08-31T00:00:00
For an organisation which tends to attract managers at an early age and keep them for life, the NHS has never been that good at maintaining a collective memory. Its tendency to look for scapegoats when things go wrong and willingness to sacrifice whole generations of managers to organisational change ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-08-24T00:00:00
There is no particular healthcare management angle to Webwatch this week, but some free services are just so useful that it would be a shame not to mention them.We all need to travel at some time or another, most of us want to know what the weather holds, and a ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-08-17T00:00:00
The recent discovery that the mosquito-borne West Nile virus that plunged New York into panic last summer had survived the winter and was working its way up the US west coast sent a frisson of excitement through the broadsheet press on both sides of the Atlantic .
News
WEB WATCH
2000-08-10T00:00:00
Three years ago, fewer than a million people in this country made use of the Internet - around 2 per cent of the population. Since then, growth has been dramatic: one estimate suggests nearly 20 million people are now online, and National Statistics says 6.5 million households in the UK ...
News
WEB WATCH
2000-08-03T00:00:00
Mad Pride did not adopt its name without a bit of soul searching.

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