All Health Service Journal articles in Opinion – Page 31
-
Comment
Efficiency indicators
The 'Better care, Better Value' indicators are an important step forward. The sickness absence rate in the NHS has never been below 4.5 per cent in the past decade. Despite investment to 'improve working lives' and the health of NHS employees it has remained resistant to change in almost all ...
-
Comment
Service redesign consultations
I worry we have lost the plot. In the last two weeks I have received four different letters from solicitors offering me advice on consultation. Post Derbyshire some colleagues have become obsessed with what we need to satisfy our legal friends. How grim. Have we really got to the point ...
-
Comment
Turnaround consultants
I am sure Malcolm Lowe-Lauri's opinion column on management consultants must have struck a chord with PCT colleagues who have been subjected to the turnaround process in recent months (page 17, 5 October). Although the consultants input has been valuable in some areas the benefits were not apparent in many ...
-
Comment
Efficiency indicators and Christie trust
Nick Edwards is quite right to suggest that efficiency indicators do not tell the story behind the numbers ( Click here to read the comment). So why did HSJcompound this by labelling Christie Hospital trust the worst in England ...
-
Comment
Sickness absence rates
The NHS Partners findings neatly sidestep the probability of false sickness absenteeism, or 'pulling a sickie', being a component of the 4.6 per cent absenteeism figure ( click here to read the full story).
-
Comment
Neil Goodwin on politicians, customer care and a portfoilo life
'I confess to not missing the grind of the job; 36 years is long enough for anyone. I also do not miss politicians who have a tendency to be personally abusive'
-
Comment
Emma Dent on warding off germs
'At the risk of sounding like a 'man flu'-affected member of the opposite sex, I am a bit alarmed that, as I write, it is well over a week since I first woke up feeling ropey and yet I am still coughing and spluttering like a 60 a day-er.'
-
News
Peter Cardy on rewriting the cancer plan
As cancer care shifts out of hospital, more cancer patients risk poverty as the associated costs rise. Now is the time to tackle the financial distress of the disease, argues Peter Cardy
-
Comment
Trust websites
I don't know which is more alarming about your Working Lives article ('In on the act', page 26, 28 September), the idea that some unfortunate employee of the Healthcare Commission spent 285 hours studying NHS websites, or the reported remark that scanning a website for 30 minutes is only a ...
-
Comment
Pace of reform
Keith Palmer argues persuasively that there is a need to maintain the momentum of reform (Opinion, page 22, 12 October) but his analysis illustrates a fundamental difficulty. He focuses largely on secondary care and the only reference to general practices is about their referrals to other services, although he does ...
-
News
Occupational therapy
I read with great delight the article by David Woodheadreferring to the virtues of working on an allotment and how beneficial it is.
-
Comment
An online service tailored to your needs
This week, HSJgets personal. Today we have launched a new online service free to registered users of the website, designed to bring you the most relevant content direct to your desktop.
-
Comment
NICE and value for money
I am currently denied a particular course of medication, in the sense that NICE has determined that the NHS would not receive value for the £2,000 per month that it would cost.
-
News
NPSA and menus
Your article 'NPSA attacks meaningless glossy menus' (news, 12 October, page 16) misrepresents my comments at the patient safety fringe event during the Conservative Party conference.
-
Comment
Sue Slipman on foundation trusts and the healthcheck ratings
'Having strengthened their financial management without comprising service quality, foundation trusts are now in a position to step up their investment in providing first class patient care'
-
Comment
Electronic staff record
I was interested to read the letter from Ken Hutchinson, managing director of HR Strategic Solutions, which characterised the electronic staff record as a failed Department of Health initiative (Feedback, page 19, 28 September).
-
Comment
Your Humble Servant: regime change
‘We need to start stockpiling resources for a long fight now. We have started buying up poster sites and newspaper advertising space to deny it to the opposition.’
-
Comment
Efficiency indicators do not tell the story behind the numbers
The comprehensive spending review is no longer the distant event it once seemed - the coming financial squeeze makes a numbers game out of the next 18 months or so.
-
Comment
Neil Goodwin...with the Beckhams in Venice
'Nothing would be worse for Beckham, Venice and the NHS to hear people say that they were once great but that was a long time ago'. Our new online-only columnist brings us the first of his regular diary piece charting life after NHS management
-
Comment
Appointments Commission
I was interested to see (page 8, 14 September 2006) that the Appointments Commission was insisting that previous experience as a chair was not excluded from candidate assessment even though HSJ had seen letters from that same commission which confirmed that such experience was indeed not to be taken into ...