Complaints Up – Good or Bad News?

Complaints up! Shock horror! I can imagine what tomorrow’s press will make of the NHS Information Centre report on English written complaints showing a 13.4% year on year rise, breaking through the 100,000 barrier. The accompanying comments from Tim Straughan the chief executive try to put this... 
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Well-timed charitable appeal raises concern about use of NHS database

Got a nice letter from Tim Smart today. He is the chief exec of King’s College Hospital here in London, England. The letter introduced him and told me about the existence and the work of the King’s College Hospital Charity. An entrepreneurial reaction to budgeted cuts. I lose no sleep over... 
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Who You Going to Call? Ghostbusters!!

Their number for students of trivia was 555 2368. Remember that for the next time you need them. Add it to your list of essential numbers. I called the police the other day. My bedroom window had two small holes in the outer pane of the double-glazed unit. Stones? Airgun pellets? Should I call the police?... 
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BMA to GPs – PPI integral to consortia commissioning decisions

The first statement from the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee about consortia commissioning responsibilities appeared last week.  We recommend you read it. MAC’s verdict Undoubtedly it’s a good start, but it will have to do better as it goes along especially as some £80bn of taxpayers... 
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On my face; in my face

Operations on your face are very much in your face. It is an oddly intimate atmosphere where strangers are very close  to you, murmuring in your ear advising you to close your eyes. The knife makes no noise – nothing like the whine of the dentist with their noisy drills and sucking tubes.... 
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Liberating Primary Care

If you are not White Papered out already, we’d like to offer up our thoughts about patient and public engagement in primary care.  Our views on Local Democratic Legitimacy in Health, LINks and HealthWatch are here and here.  The focus now switches to GP consortia and primary care practices, the grass... 
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The Wrappings on Local Health Watch

Thanks to Jeremy Taylor for raising in a comment on the LINks and Healthwatch post the thorny issue of Local Health Watch (LHW) and the proposed relationship to local authority funders.  He said: HealthWatch should be funded through local authorities but not accountable to them. How can you be accountable... 
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