All articles by Noel Plumridge – Page 3
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Comment
Noel Plumridge: savings are not surpluses
Before we called it “the recession”, it was known as “the credit crunch”. Trading confidence drained away, the banks stopped lending, and anyone with cash held on to it.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: checking up on the Nicholson challenge
Pressed on where the £20bn productivity gain that is now known as the “Nicholson challenge” will actually be found, the top of theDepartment of Health cites a ratio of 40:20:40.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: will the government help write trusts' shopping lists?
Two recent public accounts committee reports suggest the NHS may still have a thing or two to learn about shopping.
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CommentDebate: is general practice pulling its weight in the efficiency challenge?
On 30 June, HSJ columnist Noel Plumridge suggested primary care should carry its share of the £20bn Nicholson challenge, alluding to the Nuffield Trust’s March recommendation that primary care “should become a key focus of the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention agenda”. Noel’s article led to this correspondence with Pat ...
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CommentNoel Plumridge: inflation is set to inflame the pension problem
The most important economic indicator this autumn is an old friend, reappearing like a toothache you’d forgotten about. It’s inflation.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: changes to charitable funding risks donators' benevolence
If, when the time comes, you leave a share of your worldly wealth to your local NHS, that’s entirely up to you. After all, it’s your money.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: the price of reputation
How would you feel about a health insurer that took your premium payments and then turned down your claim, not on the basis of an alleged pre-existing condition, or something in the contractual small print, but simply because it considered your illness a low priority?
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CommentNoel Plumridge: the finance director's job interview
“May I recap,” she said. “If I’m appointed finance director of the trust, my main deliverable is a financial strategy for foundation trust status within two years?”
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CommentNoel Plumridge: time for primary care to shoulder its share of the savings burden
Around 20 per cent of the entire NHS budget is currently spent on primary care.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: breaking up is hard to do
Hanging on to the title deeds of the community estate must have seemed such a neat idea last year, as primary care trusts pondered the future of their soon to be departing provider arms.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: parallel process in danger of doubling costs
First, in April, came the “pause” in the passage of the Health Bill. Then the “listening exercise” and the appointment of the NHS Future Forum. And, along the way, the Liberal Democrats’ humiliation in the May elections.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: Monitor is showing a truer picture
“Breathtaking insensitivity” is the alleged failing of David Bennett, Monitor’s new chair, for daring to suggest the 4 per cent target efficiency gain required of the NHS this year, under the Department of Health operating framework, may be just a little understated.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: calling any qualified commissioners
Last week’s public accounts committee report on the NHS landscape states: “Most important, the department has not yet got a framework to deal with failure in the system, be it on the provider side or the commissioning side”.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: PFI pipe dream turns sour
Within the EU, the talk is now of a periphery and a core. Peripheral countries that the international bond market no longer loves – Greece, Ireland and now Portugal – have to borrow large sums of money from the core merely to stay afloat.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: RIP, payment by results
After nearly a decade, it’s time to say goodbye to payment by results.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: shouldn't specialist services be cheaper, not dearer?
The value of specialist top-ups under the NHS tariff is falling. Specialist children’s hospitals had 78 per cent additional funding compared with the standard tariff, but from April their uplift will only be 60 per cent.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: what will the year end yield for trust finances?
Ever wondered why financial years begin in April? It’s the crop cycle.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: when it comes to GP income, how long is a piece of string?
Just how much does a GP earn? The NHS Information Centre estimates average GP income in 2008-09 (the latest figures available) as £105,300. But any average conceals variations.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: feeling the squeeze
Dupuytren’s contracture is a condition that causes fingers to bend towards the palm. Named after the French surgeon who first described the condition in 1834, it mainly affects men - a reported one in five men aged over 60 - and is most prevalent among people of northern European descent.
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CommentNoel Plumridge: trapped in PFI purgatory
Of the 16 pages of last week’s Managing the Transition letter from Richmond House, the provider side of the NHS occupies a mere three paragraphs. One about the foundation trust “pipeline”, one on separating primary care trusts from their former provider arms and one on encouraging the independent sector.