All articles by Michael White – Page 11
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CommentMichael White: through choice comes different outcomes - and that way we learn
Politicians had barely shaken the sand from their shoes or packed away the bucket and spade before they were gripped by that hardy health perennial, proposed changes to Britain’s abortion law.
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CommentMichael White: avoiding the thing called IT
A new report in the Harvard Business Review suggests that big IT projects are spiralling out of control, at considerable cost to taxpayers, shareholders and customers. Naturally it made me think again of the NHS’s own national programme for IT drama, running expensively since 2003.
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CommentMichael White: the riots could change the outlook for health priorities
As we all picked our way through the debris of what I’m tempted to call the “Foot Locker Riots” in search of deeper explanations than the urgent need for new trainers, I found myself thinking several times of Sir Michael Marmot, the man HSJ likes to call “the guru of ...
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CommentMichael White: the strange landscape of US healthcare
Where else but the US should this column spend a few days as punishment for not understanding how inappropriate a mechanism competition is for driving efficiency and innovation in healthcare?
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CommentMichael White: see you later, innovator
Oh dear. The British Medical Association is promising health ministers a long hot summer over the Health Bill, instead of a few calm weeks for leisurely reflection; this is in the misplaced hope that the medics can force its withdrawal before the bill goes to the obstreperous Lords.
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CommentMichael White: Lansley - the boy on the burning deck?
Watching Andrew Lansley performing these days sometimes reminds me of Casabianca, Felicia Dorothea Hemans’ famous poem of 1826, the one about the young French sailor (was he 10, 12 or 13?) who stayed at his post on the doomed warship, L’Orient, during Nelson’s 1798 victory at the Battle of the ...
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CommentMichael White: political meltdown?
Meltdown is an overworked media cliché which I try to avoid. But recent developments look a bit serious for the coalition.
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CommentMichael White: the well-intended Dilnot report may fall on deaf ears
Ministers didn’t sound very grateful for Andrew Dilnot’s report on how to solve England’s elderly care problems and, I suspect, eventually those of the devolved Celtic regions too because they have similar money issues with oldsters who stubbornly won’t die.
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CommentMichael White: Cameron takes Labour to task in Wales
Have you noticed in all the excitement over reform of the NHS in England that David Cameron has taken to poking the NHS in Labour-dominated Wales for cuts being factored into the health budget in Cardiff?
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CommentMichael White: the noisy ghosts of health ministers past
Why are former health ministers being so noisy in these turbulent times? No, I do not mean Frank Dobson’s spat with ministers who want to eject better-off people from council flats like the one opposite the British Museum which he has occupied for decades.
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CommentMichael White: reform concessions do little to soften Tory image
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that Nick Clegg hired Wembley Stadium to celebrate his party’s triumph in helping rewrite Andrew Lansley’s Health Bill and “saving the NHS.” But Lib Dem boasting caused resentment among Conservative MPs of all stripes.
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CommentMichael White: Southern Cross is a victim of financial engineering
Things may finally be changing but, until the GMB union and Ed Miliband got stuck in this week, I have been repeatedly astonished by the failure to link the care homes crisis to the fate of Andrew Lansley’s bill.
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CommentMichael White: how to survive in the blame game
I heard a senior NHS manager on the radio mid-week sounding like Sharon (“I don’t do blame”) Shoesmith, Haringey’s ousted children’s services chief, as he defended his hospital against a damning report from the Care Quality Commission.
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CommentMichael White: bill opposition proving more than just yellow-bellied
Perhaps I underestimated Liberal Democrat determination to amend the bill (only one bill in this column) or push it under a bus.
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CommentMichael White: who's the one to watch?
I must admit that the first thing I looked for in Monday’s newspapers wasn’t Cameron’s big NHS speech. It was to see whether weekend reports of boastful remarks about “big opportunities” for the US private sector in Britain’s healthcare market had gained much media traction.
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CommentMichael White: mixed-market debate feels like déjà vu all over again
“John Redwood is right” is not a sentence I try to utter very often. The Tory right winger is brainy and high minded, but he places too much faith in markets and lacks political sense.
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CommentMichael White: despite distractions, the focus remains trained on reforms
Did you catch that row over the NHS at prime minister’s question time? No, I thought not. What with the royal nuptial and the killing of Osama bin Laden we have all had a lot on our media plate.
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CommentMichael White: the Tory rhetoric is now bogged down in detail
Over a junk food lunch with NHS heavies recently I found the conversation turning – yet again – to Andrew Lansley. Is he on the level? Does he have a hidden agenda to privatise the system? That kind of thing.
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CommentMichael White: time to address costly preventable failures
It being Easter weekend this column thought to give Andrew Lansley and his NHS reforms the week off. The secretary of state is on his own painful road to Calvary, carrying a legislative cross of his own making.
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CommentMichael White: Lansley must tune in to rescue reforms
To listen to Nick Clegg picking his way through the minefield of NHS reform on Radio 4 was to be reminded how hard it is to calibrate effective opposition – words and actions which can make a difference to important legislation.