On 28 October, I was part of a Health Foundation and Nuffield Trust “Quality Watch” panel, speaking on the media representation of quality in healthcare. Truth be told, I had […]
NHS
Chris Ham: The NHS Five Year Forward View—the man matters more than the plan
Something very important happened on 23 October and it wasn’t the publication of the NHS Five Year Forward View. Far more important was the passion and confidence with which Simon Stevens […]
Mary E Black: Inside the mind of a Member of Parliament
I had the opportunity to listen to a number of MPs explain how they think during the excellent Westminster experience organized by Cumberlege Eden & Partners as part of my […]
David Zigmond: NHS stewardship—the missing personal factor
In healthcare our systems of governance are increasingly developed and vaunted. Yet these are very different from our capacities for stewardship. Inevitably and predictably, the recent party political conferences each […]
Julie Browne: Why do some clinical supervisors become bullies?
The literature on bullying in the medical workplace makes disturbing reading. In the General Medical Council’s 2013 national training survey, 13.2% of respondents said that they had been victims of […]
Samir Dawlatly: A GP on why I still go to work
Recently Lord Howe warned GPs to stop complaining about their work conditions, so that they did not cause a workforce crisis. Similar noises were heard from NHS England at the recent […]
Richard Smith: The joy of a hernia repair
I had a hernia repair recently, but the day turned out to be one of the pleasantest I’ve had in a long time. Can that really be true? Oddly, I […]
John Middleton: The “Hospital of the Future” comes to the West Midlands
On 14 July this year, the chancellor of the exchequer announced the go ahead for the new Midland Metropolitan Hospital (MMH) in Smethwick, serving the people of West Birmingham and […]
Richard Smith: Using data to improve care and reduce waste in health systems
Annual expenditure on healthcare in the United States is currently $2.8 trillion, and about a third of it is wasted, says the Institute of Medicine. The sum wasted is about […]
David Lock: Avastin and Lucentis—It’s time for NHS commissioners to act rationally by limiting the choices for wet AMD patients
The news that a Cochrane Review has concluded that Avastin (bevacizumab) is as safe as Lucentis (ranibizumab) to treat patients with wet age related macular degeneration (“wet AMD”), along with other […]