The third Francis report on how to build a safe NHS has been published, this time focusing on the problem of how staff can raise their concerns about patient care without fear of victimisation or whistleblowing…
Kate Granger started the #hello my name is … campaign.
The BMA
A terminally ill doctor has started a campaign to encourage healthcare staff to introduce themselves to patients. Kate Granger initiated the “Hello my name is …” campaign while she was hospitalised and…
New data published today from NatCen’s British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey reveals an increase in satisfaction with the NHS – up to 65% from 60% in 2013. At the same time, dissatisfaction is at its lowest…
Alan Milburn, Labour health secretary from 1999 to 2003, has caused quite a stir by attacking the party over its plans for the NHS. In an interview with the BBC, Milburn warned that Labour risked repeating…
The cost of treatment is one of the biggest areas of the NHS budget and one of the most sensitive areas of discussion. We would all like to have an infinite amount of money to spend treating diseases and…
We need to focus on the job in hand.
Nurses by Shutterstock
Having recently completed a 50-year career in nursing and health research and development I am often asked to talk to newly graduating students. At one such event recently, I shared with them some examples…
To beat the system you have to understand it first.
Heart monitor by Shutterstock
The narrative around the NHS today is of angels and demons. We want to praise heroes when life is sweet and find a villain for each failure. Even more confusingly, the same person can be cast as both hero…
Graeme Currie, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
The A&E crisis in the NHS this year seems significantly different to the “normal” winter crisis that happens each year from changes in seasonal demand. Given that the problem – waiting times, ambulance…
Very mobile monitoring.
Telehealth by Shutterstock
It has been widely reported that NHS accident and emergency departments are facing a crisis. Demand for A&E services appears to be soaring at the same time as austerity measures continue to bite. This…
The problems currently crippling the NHS and social care are not happening in a vacuum. The A&E crisis and the critical lack of beds are related to politicians’ love for large-scale, rapid and untested…
Circle to walk away after three years and £5m losses.
Chris Radburn/PA
Healthcare group Circle has announced that it plans to withdraw from its contract to run Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire, three years into a deal that was supposed to last ten years. The company…
Planning ahead for emergencies.
Ambulance by Shutterstock
Graeme Currie, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Every year demand for health services – specifically A&E departments – goes up in winter, something that the NHS seems to be unable to plan for. In England, almost 30,000 more people visited A&E…
George Osborne has announced that he would put an extra £2 billion into the NHS. This will be welcomed by many as an acknowledgement of the challenge faced by the health service in closing a significant…
Empowering patients might have more to do with bean-counting than you realise.
sfam_photo
In Austerity Britain, few cutbacks capture the public ire like those directed towards the beloved NHS. In the public consciousness at least, it seems the NHS must remain outside the whims of party politics…
Many governments are going to great lengths to provide better information about the quality of health and social care services. In the US, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid recently announced a raft…
We are a nation steeped in alcohol; it’s arguably Britain’s favourite drug, and its use is not without consequence and cost to our health and our wealth. These effects are felt at both a national and personal…
It’s all a blur. NHS cuts are relying on an ageing, flawed business concept.
Robert Emmerich
Usually when great national institutions are perceived as being under threat people start to get anxious. And as we know, anxious people can sometimes do strange things. Sometimes they announce grand but…
Investing in health will pay off in the workforce.
Phillie Casablanca
Amid all the talk of the UK’s economic recovery it is easy to forget that workforce health is a productivity issue. Over the next 20 years, as our workforce ages, retires later and the risks of more chronic…
Over the past few years there has been a push towards getting patients with long-term conditions such as diabetes to take on more responsibility for their conditions. The traditional wisdom is that GP…
The four-hour strikes by NHS workers over ministers’ failure to adhere to a recommended 1% increase in salary is set against the broader issue of NHS reform and the recent Five Year Forward View that set…
Deputy Director, Intellectual Forum at Jesus College in the University of Cambridge, and Researcher for the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University, University of Cambridge