A sense of an ending?
By the time this blog is published on the morning of Friday 8th May, we may be a step closer to knowing what the next UK government is going to look like. Having said that, we may be further away...
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Money, Death, Pain and Politics
Who’s who and what’s what in the war over cancer drugs Over the last few days a very nice man from Ipswich called Tim Mason has been appearing in the local media where I live. Tim has an illness called...
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CAMHS in Crisis
There’s been more bad news recently about the state of young people’s mental health. One in five 11-15 year-olds in England now report self-harming. The number of people who die by suicide is also increasing, as is the number of...
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David Cameron, England’s NHS, and the tiger in the bathroom
As it becomes impossible to deny the devastation being wreaked on the National Health Service by 2012’s Health & Social Care Act, who is really pledging to fix it?
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Q: “When is an NHS provider not a qualified provider?” A: “When it’s a willing provider…”
What’s the difference you might ask? Well, here’s the rub, according to the last edition of Private Eye, there isn’t one! December’s edition of Private Eye reported a range of concerns about the regulation and governance of Any Qualified Providers...
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Visibility and invisibility in a leaderless NHS
Alex Stevenson wrote a piece on the politics.co.uk blog last week where he talked about leadership in the post-reform NHS. He reviewed the findings of a recent Public Administration Select Committee, detailing a lack of accountability across UK healthcare provision,...
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Last throw of the dice…?
Is the granting of new rights to desperate patients and their doctors in the Medical Innovations Bill a valiant attempt to save lives – or will it turn the NHS into an unethical guinea-pig farm?
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The Demise of the Inconveniently Good Beveridge Model: Part 2
Part 1 presented evidence that England is now rearranging one of the world’s most effective and most efficient health care systems into a copy of the world’s least financially efficient system. Part 2 documents the role of politicians and private...
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The inconveniently excellent Beveridge NHS model: Part 1
NHS Model – made redundant for being too good? This is a blog in two parts. Part 1 will consider the international comparisons showing the current changes to the NHS as perverse in terms of the effect the sizeable increase...
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GPs aren’t private companies – but the private takeover is nearing
All GP practices will have to open to private sector competition, NHS England has announced. Is this why 85% of GPs think the NHS will be fully privatised in 10 years? ‘All you GPs are private providers anyway’ I often have...
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NHS Nu-Speak
This email has been scanned for viruses; however we are unable to accept responsibility for any damage caused by the contents. The opinions expressed in this email represent the views of the sender, not [name removed] NHS Foundation Trust unless...
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Catching Cancer?