All Policy articles – Page 219
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Comment
Achieving 18 weeks: engaging with NHS managers and clinicians
As the NHS hits the government's 18-week referral to treatment target early, national implementation director Philippa Robinson, a trained nurse, explains the important role clinical leadership has played in the achievement
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News
NHS Direct shelves foundation trust plans
NHS Direct has put its plans to become a foundation trust on ice. The decision follows government reluctance to free the national service from central control.The Department of Health feels it needs to be able to call on NHS Direct as an emergency hotline in the event of a terrorist ...
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News
Conservatives promise to speed up drug access
The Conservative Party has announced plans for changes to drug access and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
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Comment
Hilary Thomas on NHS top-ups
I approach the subject of NHS top-ups with some trepidation. The issue is complex and there are no easy answers. Considering it from the cancer perspective, I will attempt to throw light into some dark corners of the debate.
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News
Latest NHS waiting times figures released
The Department of Health has released inpatient and outpatient waiting times figures for England for September.
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CommentAngela Greatley on the Mental Health Act
From 3 November, most parts of the long-awaited and often feared 2007 Mental Health Act will be implemented. For the NHS, the new act presents major challenges by extending the scope of compulsory powers and by creating some new safeguards for those subject to them.
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News
Alan Johnson wants fewer London PCTs
Alan Johnson has called for a debate about whether there are too many primary care trusts in London. The health secretary told HSJ that he didn't think having 31 PCTs covering London was 'the most sensible arrangement'.
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News
Back to work plans could penalise mental health patients
A leading mental health campaigner has dismissed proposed reforms which aim to get a million people back into work as too harsh.
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News
PCTs say realpolitik is behind unequal healthcare
Primary care trusts claim confusion, self-interest and realpolitik lie at the heart of the unfair distribution of NHS resources.
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News
Managers' union calls on DH to 'rip up' pay scheme
The pay scheme for very senior NHS managers undermines the effort going into world class commissioning and should be 'ripped up', officials are being told.
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News
Monitor chair calls on PCTs to set out plans for services
The coming years will see an increase in foundation trusts running primary care services, as well as culls of failing hospitals, executive chair of the regulator Monitor Bill Moyes has predicted.
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News
Health inequalities could be forgotten as cash gets tight
Tighter NHS finances could mean the quest to reduce health inequalities will either get nasty - or be forgotten altogether.
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News
National NHS pay deal criticised
Nationally negotiated pay means commissioners' hands are tied from using bigger salaries to attract more good doctors, the Commons health select committee was told last week.
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Leader
Hold your nerve - equality is not an expensive indulgence
This week's HSJ special edition on health inequalities looks at the causes, complexities, arguments and options that underpin this most intractable of policy issues.
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News
Johnson keeps the faith on inequalities
Health secretary Alan Johnson says the life expectancy gap is closing and he is promising the end of GP shortages. There is more to do but this is no time for a 'counsel of despair', he tells Rebecca Evans
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Comment
Your Humble Servant on foundation trusts
To: Don Wise, chief executiveFrom: Paul Servant, assistant chief executiveRe: Money, Money, Monitor
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News
Health inequalities: wealthiest overfunded as the poor lose out
NHS services in the poorest and most needy parts of the country are being systematically underfunded to the benefit of the healthiest and wealthiest.Analysis by HSJ of the budgets allocated to GPs to pay for drugs and hospital care for their patients show that the wealthiest tenth of the population ...
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Comment
Media Watch: healthcare reviews
Unlike certain colleagues, health secretary Alan Johnson has never been invited onto a billionaire's gin palace. 'Trawlers occasionally, but never yachts,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
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News
Yorkshire SHA takes lead on quality pledge
NHS Yorkshire and the Humber is to set up a 'quality foundation', which it claims will go one step further than the regional quality observatories recommended by Lord Darzi.
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News
Low NHS waiting times masking wide variation in performance
The NHS has achieved historically low hospital waiting times but faces a battle to ensure the 18 week target is hit in every area by December.