All Health Service Journal articles in Opinion – Page 4
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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
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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.'
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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'
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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).
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Comment
Equality and recruitment
The NHS has a bad reputation when it comes to equality of opportunity. Historically it was slow to move from a colourblind approach to race, and many health organisations only introduced equal opportunity polices when they were required to by legislation.
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Comment
Privacy in hospitals
I have always had a problem with issues of privacy in acute hospitals. I started my career as a clinical psychologist working with people with learning disabilities and being very aware that I was going into people's homes - even when they were in NHS care.
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Comment
Reform and instability
'Why instability is inevitable' - Simon Stevens' article on the NHS and the J curve (page 19, 19 October) reminded me of a classic false syllogism: 'It always gets worse before it gets better.It certainly is getting worse. Therefore it will get better.'
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News
Burden of unbundling the tariff falls on quality of local data
This week's 'road testing' of the payment by results tariff for 2007-08 will, the Department of Health hopes, result in considerably less noise than the late and broken one released in January. The DoH says it is not looking for any comment or complaint about what the tariff should or ...
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Comment
Managing a merger? Don't lose the plot
A new era of NHS mergers is upon us. But lessons from the business world show that they can be painful and uncomfortable. Steve Downing outlines a theatrical route to tackling the problems
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News
Minister puts onus on trusts to negotiate unbundled tariff
Primary care and acute trusts need to negotiate their own ways to unbundle the payment by results tariff, health minister Lord Warner said as he launched the 'road test' of next year's tariff.
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News
'Emotional blackmail' of nursing staff
I do not have a problem with teamwork and continuing part-time care. However, this excuse is trotted out every time money has to be saved. It's a form of emotional blackmail of already hard-pressed nursing staff.
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Comment
Lean thinking
While there is evidence supporting a case management approach to the care of patients in the greatest need of healthcare, this has been less convincing than some seem to believe. Also, the creation of structures that are separate from general practice is both counter-intuitive and seems to run contrary to ...
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Comment
Merit awards
Dr Giles Croft's lament about the inaccuracy of Hospital Episode Statistics and their inappropriateness as a means of managing the performance of doctors (HSJ, November 2nd) raises the nice issue of why there are some problems with HES accuracy. Surely such inaccuracies are the product of failures by clinicians to ...
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Comment
Your Humble Servant: non-executive joy
‘As for selection processes, we still can’t fathom them. It used to be so simple: either failed politicians found a way to boost their pension or successful ones got their wives out of the way a few days a month’.
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Comment
Clinical governance
While I agree with using data for decision making (Click here to read the full story), for this to happen effectively we need greater management leverage of clinical governance.
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Comment
Professor David J Hunter and Jeffrie Strang on public health and organisational reform
The justification for the current reorganisation of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts is to strengthen the commissioning function of PCTs and to save £250m in management costs. But are these good enough reasons and will the mergers create a period of stasis? ...