All Opinion/columnist articles – Page 64
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Michael White on the budget
'Brown did not say what health will get in 2008-11, though he is said to be focusing on health in his Treasury lair'
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Media watch: C difficile in Norfolk
The news on superbugs gets worse following reports that a mutant strain of Clostridium difficile has been linked to the death of 17 patients at a Norfolk hospital.
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Media Watch: earnings cap
So ministers have 'blundered' again, according to London's Evening Standard. This time it is because they have failed to cap doctors' earnings.
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Media Watch: earnings cap
So ministers have 'blundered' again, according to London's Evening Standard. This time it is because they have failed to cap doctors' earnings.
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Michael White: change in the NHS
We were standing on the edge of my local swimming pool discussing the inevitability of change when a fellow wrinklie walked past, saying: 'Don't talk to me about change. I work for the NHS and whenever I hear that word I just switch off.'
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Media watch: hospital phone charges
Those unlucky enough to spend Easter in hospital also had the misfortune of paying a whopping 26p per minute if they wished to call their loved ones. Not unexpectedly the tabloids and broadsheets were up in arms last week as they bemoaned the 160 per cent increase in hospital call ...
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Sophia Christie on lessons from Sweden
One of the most distinctive characteristics of NHS trusts' work with US company Kaiser Permanente is also one of the least commented upon. Kaiser Health Plan is an insurance company in an exclusive partnership with the Permanente Medical Group, run as a profit share company for the participating partner doctors.
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Listen and learn: keys to good commissioning
How does accountability to patients and the public fit into the commissioning framework, asks David Colin-Thome. Below, Tim Gilling outlines the 10 areas essential to effective scrutiny
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Media Watch: drug company's promise
This week comes news that a drug firm has offered to refund the cost of one of its products to the NHS if it fails to work on patients.
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Michael White on consultants
Chairing a session at a recent Unison conference on the future of the NHS I chided Clive Efford, Labour MP for Eltham in south London, after he had cheerfully abused consultants. I think the word he used was 'spivs', unaware that the room was full of them, including the nice ...
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Noel Plumridge on the cost of a day's work
'Calculate your daily rate. Say it out loud. 'I'm a £500 a day sort of guy''
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Michael White: parliamentary deadlock
'Parliament is deadlocked on serious issues that may end up in a 'ping pong' test of wills'
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Managers must dig deep for new skill set
Overcoming complex NHS management challenges - insularity, short-termism and a sometimes crippling hierarchy - will require major changes to the way managers operate, argues Nigel Edwards
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Michael White on the 'demise' of nursing
Sometimes the political weather seems to follow the climatic version. So it was no surprise during the snow to read a mild-mannered press release about training patterns under the lurid headline that we face 'the demise of nursing' in Britain.
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Media Watch: doctor MoTs
If you'd just open the bonnet now, Dr Cameron, and we'll be through with your MoT for another five years. Before you know it, young Dr Finlay will be up for his MoT too.
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Michael White: junior doctors
'Hewitt would have watched footage of Cameron being cheered by a throng of angry junior doctors with some alarm'
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Media Watch: junior doctors
'How could they be so stupid?' asked the Daily Mail as it berated the government for failing to ensure junior doctors will be guaranteed jobs this summer in the Department of Health's new recruitment process.
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Laura Donnelly on thoughts at last orders
'I used to be frightened when a colleague wore a Virginia Bottomley mask in times of stress'
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Simon Stevens on five ideas to innovate
Fly-on-the-wall documentaries typically only benefit the fly. This is a truth probably now held to be self evident at Rotherham foundation trust. But, if one of the things to take away from the BBC programme Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? was that ideally there would be more local initiative ...
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Media Watch: working for free
One test of a story's likely impact on the public is the range of newspapers that run it. On that basis, the story at the weekend that nurses, doctors and other staff at a Kent acute trust have been asked to do a day's work for no pay pretty much ...