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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The Five Years Forward View, NHS England’s blueprint for further investment, shows the crisis facing the NHS. There has been a fall in real-terms expenditure because – regardless of what the current government…
Running a healthcare system is expensive. At present we spend about 8% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the NHS. The UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility, predicts that by 2061 we could be spending…
Public sector workers have been taking to the streets protesting the below-inflation pay rises and austerity. The Trades Union Congress hoped this would send a clear message to the British government…
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he wants to develop “integrated care organisations” in the English NHS, with NHS hospital trusts taking a lead role in forming them. This has been challenged, quite…
This week has witnessed the seventh round of talks between EU and US negotiators seeking to hammer out a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These have been mired in controversy over…
Jennifer Dixon, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Anyone who has had the “pleasure” of attending party conferences will know they are largely political theatre. While serious discussion does happen, spiky debates mostly take place in the lively fringe…
Without the fuss and delays that have plagued so many large government IT projects, a key part of the NHS digital infrastructure was recently migrated and updated in a single weekend. The collection of…
Alex Salmond’s political de mortuis didn’t last long. His local paper, the Aberdeen Press and Journal, put a big focus on his high standing in Strichen in Aberdeenshire, where he lives. The locals said…
Imagine you are feeling unwell, in pain, lonely and worried about your future health, and you just don’t feel like eating. It is unlikely that you want to eat a large, hot meal that arrives in front of…
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