All articles by Michael White – Page 10
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Comment
Michael White: humility is in short supply despite Lansley's 'climbdown'
It would be good to detect signs of humility and contrition in the healthcare community when the editors of three of the leading trade publications (including this one) launch a “never again” plea for more discussion and less prescriptive dogmatism next time there’s an NHS reorganisation.
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Michael White: will Lansley's Healh Bill survive the 'big push'?
Do you remember the Battle of the Bulge? No, nor do I. It was the last German counter-offensive on the western front in World War II, a thrust through the Ardennes at Christmas 1944 that hoped to push British and American armies back into the Channel.
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Michael White: trusts need to be wary of the lure of lawsuits
Catching my eye before Christmas was the £4.5m employment tribunal award against Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust in the case ofconsultant Eva Michalak.
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Michael White: a deal must be cut to restore certainty to the NHS
It’s surely good news that health ministers are to encourage medical staff to ask patients about their lifestyle choices, as ProfessorSteve Field’s NHS Future Forum has been suggesting - though in my experience they have been doing it for ages.
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Comment
Michael White: the mess in the cosmetic Wild West
Public authorities like the NHS often take a beating from energetic health journalists during the annual Christmas news doldrums. Why? Large, complex organisations always have problems, but are less likely to fire off menacing lawyers’ letters than dodgy banks.
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Michael White: can Lansley's localism really escape postcode lottery-itis?
Confusing, isn’t it? One week an international report gives England’s still-centralised NHS a pat on the back for rapid improvements. The next week another survey concludes that the NHS is more popular than it has ever been.
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Michael White: the eternal tension of national vs regional policy
David Cameron’s new plan to open up NHS medical records to high-tech life science researchers is a bit like chancellor George Osborne’s proposal in last week’s autumn statement to boost the regional economies in those parts of Britain that are suffering most in the downturn.
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Michael White: freedom to choose doesn't stop bad decisions
Reading recently about the difficult transition from Oliver Cromwell’s 11-year republic to the restored Stuart monarchy of Charles II in 1660, I came across some wise words by the great aristo-scientist, Robert Boyle.
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Comment
Michael White: ministers' fears of a CQC tick box regime
Hurt feelings are easy to detect in the system as the winter nights draw in. Officials at the Care Quality Commission sound hurt at what they feel is unfair media treatment of their efforts to ensure the super-regulator is fit for purpose.
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Michael White: private sector concerns going round in circles
Days before the conclusion of Circle Health’s long negotiation to take over the running of Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust I encountered some research about the private sector’s parallel march through Britain’s prison management system. It struck me forcefully.
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Michael White: let's back the public sector plan B
At the weekend I rang an old trade union friend, a veteran of countless public sector negotiations, disputes and occasional strikes, to hear him contradict my own excessively rational view (“don’t do it, comrades”) of the pensions dispute which threatens NHS services this month.
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Michael White: don't bank on blaming Brussels for the NHS's ills
I was nursing a cold and watching the Commons EU debate on the telly at home when I was startled to hear David Nuttall, the Tory MP leading the anti-European charge, blame those wily foreigners for the imminent closure of the maternity ward and special care baby unit in his ...
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Comment
Michael White: ice cool Professor Grant may have what it takes to succeed
It was a Labour peer who despairingly drew my attention to the vote against Professor Malcolm Grant’s appointment as chair of the NHS Commissioning Board by Labour MPs who sit on the Commons health select committee down the corridor at Westminster.
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Michael White: relief for supporters as Health Bill scrapes through Lords
Before this column embarks upon its weekly moan, it is worth looking at the NHS furore from a wider perspective.
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Michael White: Burnham's return signals the start of a grudge match
Watching the Rugby World Cup I sometimes thought of John Healey, Labour’s health spokesman until Ed Miliband’s autumn reshuffle brought former secretary of state Andy Burnham back to tackle Andrew Lansley and his now notorious bill.
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Michael White: the search for Tory health debate beyond the fringe
Before the Tory faithful arrived in Manchester for their 2011 conference, a veteran party figure predicted the NHS would not feature much, despite the turbulence behind the Health Bill and the frantic applause lines which Ed Miliband effortlessly generated in the service’s defence a week earlier in Liverpool.
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Michael White: lacklustre Labour missing opportunity in Liverpool
Sometimes politicians clash with experts on real-life issues in ways that expose the weaknesses of both groups, especially the political class.
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Michael White: don't get mad, get on with it
By the time I reached Birmingham for the Liberal Democrats’ autumn conference, the threatened drama about the fate of Andrew Lansley’s much-amended Health and Social Care Bill was all over bar the inevitable shouting.
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Comment
Michael White: in reality, even a centralised model devolves power
Much fuss was made of Nadine Dorries’ bid to tighten abortion counselling procedures as the Health and Social Care Bill finally left the Commons.
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Comment
Michael White: what's wrong with giving overseas providers a crack at managing NHS hospitals?
I was still on my late summer holiday during much of the renewed skirmishing which heralded the return of Parliament and the latest battles over the Health Bill.