Posts Tagged ‘NHS’

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Prefatory to Francis: good hospitals are run by doctors.

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

“In 2011 Dr Amanda Goodall from the Cass Business School published, in the journal Social Science & Medicine, her findings of a strong positive association between the ranked quality of a hospital and whether the CEO was a physician. This paper at long last nails the myth that doctors do not make good managers. Medical and other health professionals should urgently be restored to the highest levels in hospital management if the problems to be revealed by Robert Francis, QC, are to be dealt with in a radical manner.
Sir Miles Irving ”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/letters/article3677766.ece via a colleague on DNUK

The TImes, behind its paywall, also has an article by Tallis
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3677878.ece

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OPenGPSoC

Sunday, December 9th, 2012

The Open GP Systems of Choice

The video from the Skunkworks at EHI is a good introduction.

The town hall meeting was good, the project is in hand.

Render assistance when you can.

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Statistics Damned: Cameron and Hunt Chocolate Ration[1] rebuked

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9722661/David-Cameron-ordered-to-stop-saying-NHS-spending-is-up.html

[1] Shortly after the clocks struck thirteen on a cold bright day in April the announcement that the chocolate ration had been increased – to an amount Winston Smith recalled was less than it had been the previous week. A reference to George Orwell’s 1984. Smith’s job of course was to alter last week’s newspapers and references so that the chocolate ration did indeed appear to have been increased.

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NHS Brand new expensive manager seems excessive

Thursday, November 15th, 2012

“Nicola Plumb is to be paid up to £98,000 a year and will take up her post with the NHS Commissioning Board.

NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson says the post is necessary to protect the NHS logo.

He was forced to defend the appointment at the House of Commons health committee.

He said part of Ms Plumb’s role would be to ensure private businesses providing NHS services adopted its standards.

He said it was to make sure they “understand what it means to be part of the NHS…the culture and the values and treat their patients accordingly
”
From a medical news source.
We’ve not had a problem with brand or culture, actually. I suggest keeping out people who do.

Cheaply.

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Unethical and will harm patients?

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

To quote my colleague:-

Today Britain’s doctors will be providing urgent and emergency care only. This is unethical and will harm patients.

Oh, hang on. It’s the Jubilee Bank Holiday.”

http://www.facebook.com/mike.harris.39948

Well, that’s alright then.

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GOSH

Sunday, March 18th, 2012

Objectivity is difficult to maintain, but not doing so can bite. The reinvention of the media as interactive and linked has good and bad aspects, and a load more that are just aspects, but the self-writtenascribed piece on Jane Collins, the CEO of Great Ormond Street hospital has drawn fire entirely reasonably.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/healthcare-network/2012/mar/16/great-ormond-street-hospital-jane-collins

GOSH did not shine in the Baby P/Dr kim Holt affair, and I’m not sure they have yet shone over fixing their mess. Private Eye often runs pieces on Grub Street’s machinations and decisions, and the provenance of thiat article might well find a place there.

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Nigel, Lord Crisp used to run the NHS

Sunday, February 26th, 2012

“It [The Bill] has tried to elevate the ideas of competition and the use of the private sector, which are just mechanics, just mechanisms, as if they were the purpose.” he is reported b y the BBC to have said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17169519

Good point.

“Confused and confusing” he said, and it is. My worry is that when I see something being made so complex as not to be understood, there often turns out to be crime behind it. Obviously not if it is being run by HM Ministers of course, but chaos and floppage are likely to ensue if the Bill is not reversed.

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Prof. John Ashton

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

http://www.johnrashton.securemachines.co.uk/default.asp

I’ve not met him, but I suspect him of being better able to give an unbiased opinion of the proposed changes to the NHS than the Chief Executive of the Cumbrian PCT, whose organisation has declared disciplinary action upon him.

A career change is indicated. But not for the Prof, I think.

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Understanding the Bill: Impossible

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

At one time the Health Bill seemed based on some coherent principles, but no longer. Martin McKee (professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK writing in the BMJ) can’t understand it, and is accustomed to teaching on such things. I can’t keep track of what the current situation is. One of my few rules of thumb, I’d hesitate to say principles, general or otherwise, but an idea I apply and await disproof of is that when people are making things more complicated, and I can’t keep track, it is because they are criminals if it is business, or generally dishonest or malevolent in some other way. And not people to trust or do business with if it is possible to avoid doing.

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Meanwhile in London (Bevan’s Run)

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Clive Peedell et al arrive in Whitehall protesting the mess being made of the NHS. I’d be there if I wasn’t a long way away.

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