Owner Voices in Public Services

In the summer we asked Whose NHS IS It Anyway? and answered that in the NHS Allliance’s  eponymous manifesto.  The way the Coalition Government’s policy is developing, we should now be extending the ownership question to all  public services.  The main reason is this: the flip side of  the... 
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The Gove School of Parental Involvement: late, lite or non-existent

The golden rule of public consultation is that you don’t waste your time and that of your consultees by consulting on an issue on which you have already made up your mind. It’s not just we at MAC that say this: it was enshrined in the previous government’s code of practice on consultation... 
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More clarity – or maybe not – on commissioning for patients

Two documents emerged yesterday which take the issues in the white paper Commissioning for Patients a bit further.  I typed that title in the first time as “commissioning for payments” – but it amounts to the same thing really.  Both documents are important for what they do say and what they... 
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St Sir David’s Missal for Managers

We could just as easily have titled this “Transformative Epistolatory Approaches to Transition Management”, or for the popular version, “Eyes Wide Open and Watch Out for the Banana Skins”.   You will see what I mean when you read through NHS CEO (England) David Nicholson’s... 
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Our Patient Participation Group Liberates the NHS

Last week as Lay Member of NHS Wandsworth PEC I got to spend two hours with a group of patients and a couple of the non-clinical surgery team members at the Balham Park Surgery Patients Liaison Group, where I am also a patient, talking about the Liberating the NHS consultation.  It turned out to be... 
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BMA backtracking on PPI

Can we hear the patter of GP feet running away  from any serious commitment to patient and public involvement in GP consortia commissioning arrangements?  It certainly sounds like backtracking if we look at the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee  statement issued on 10th September. This makes... 
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The September Newsletter: Births, Babies, Bathwater

A frenzy of procreation and parturition has characterised the MAC Partners’ and the nation’s life over the summer. I am exercising a grandfatherly role to Samuel who is 3 months old now, Mrs Cameron has someone extra to lug back from her hols, the new Government is experiencing a wave of... 
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Ownership Matters in Foundation Trusts

Creating “the largest and most vibrant social enterprise sector in the world” particularly by giving more freedom to Foundation Trusts is a key objective of the policy blitz known as Liberating the NHS (in England).   Mr Lansley has also said FTs would have ‘characteristics’ of social enterprise,... 
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