All articles by Neil Churchill
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CommentImproving patient experience means engaging and supporting staff
What matters most to patients and their families
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CommentNeil Churchill: What I learnt from my day with carers
I saw what’s working and where we need to change
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CommentPatient feedback is essential to the NHS's future
The friends and family test is helping to drive local improvements
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CommentNeil Churchill: living within our means locally
It’s predicted the NHS will have to learn to live on half its long-term growth rate
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Comment'A culture shift can help reduce prescription wastage'
Patient involvement is paramount to prescription policy.
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Comment'Patients and organisations still need an information revolution'
Reorganisations might be familiar at Richmond House, but revolutions are rarer. With the information strategy officially paused, has the promised NHS spring turned to winter, asks Asthma UK chief executive Neil Churchill.
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Comment'After destructive debate, the case for reform needs to be rebuilt'
The government needs to find a way to make the ingredients of reform seem like opportunities for positive change rather than threats, writes Asthma UK chief executive Neil Churchill.
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CommentLocal services need the backup of national support
We’ve all gone local these days. The health secretary is handing power to GPs. NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson is giving a bigger say to patients.
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CommentThe listening exercise needs to reach grass roots voices
The government appears to be listening hard in a bid to appease opposition to the health service reforms - but, as Asthma UK chief executive Neil Churchill explains, some patient groups’ concerns are still not being addressed.
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Comment
Community action in the NHS is quietly building the Big Society
Mention the Big Society now in the voluntary sector and you are likely to be met with stony gazes. The prime minister’s relaunch of what he describes as his mission in politics will struggle to convince a sector facing the loss of £1.2bn in public funding from April.
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Comment'Time to scrap GP exception reporting'
We must now scrap exception reporting by GPs in the quality and outcomes framework.
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CommentNHS efficiency savings could get a rough ride
What is the difference between a cut and an efficiency saving? And will patients be able to tell the difference?
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CommentNHS reorganisation: don't leave the patients behind
It could be the language that seals the deal. New Labour’s mission got lost in a technocratic haze, so a white paper more comfortable with the vernacular of the voluntary sector is helping patient groups swallow the pill of another reorganisation while showing genuine enthusiasm for the changes ahead.
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CommentGPs and QIPP: is there a doctor on board?
The quality, innovation, productivity and prevention (QIPP) programme, a colleague once said, is like redesigning a plane while attempting to fly it.
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CommentNeil Churchill: NHS savings on long term conditions
Encouraging patients to be more self sufficient could go quite a way towards realising the required savings of £2.7bn a year by 2014 from the NHS’s long term conditions budget
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CommentNeil Churchill: advice for managers on giving criticism
As a manager, you are meant to give three pieces of praise for every piece of criticism. That’s the minimum ratio experts believe is effective in encouraging good performance.