2012 – The New Year Newsletter

The author of any New Year Newsletter has two main choices, it seems to me. Look back – revisiting triumphs, disasters, moments of laughter, a time of tears. Look forward – predicting the incidents that might attract those labels. The difficulty in one of our main areas of interest –... 
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Think Fig – the MAC Autumn Newsletter

There were times in the summer when we worried that Andrew Craig would go pop. Such was his despair as he watched our hopes and expectations for meaningful public engagement – beware! new acronym EwPC  (engagement with Patients/Communities)- go down the drain. We were concerned that his powerful... 
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Summer Newsletter: Citizen Result

This has been quite a summer for campaigning and the citizen voice. Most recently I got this email from Ricken Patel of Avaaz showing how a combination of persistence, skill in using modern communication networks and helped by the breaking phone hacking scandal had turned a done deal around. It’s... 
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June – NHS – Action Drought: Word Flood

Our thumbnail of a fictional flooded Central London (Flood 2007) must reflect the mood amongst those in Government who are now awash with views – MAC’s amongst them – from all us who responded to the invitation to fill the NHS Pause for Reflection with a great tsunami of opinion and... 
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2011 and 20 posts later- the Spring Newsletter

Now the news is that the public and patients were pretty satisfied with the NHS as it was. Ben Page of MORI was already making the point in July last year that the Ipsos MORI Issues Index back in 2002 showed the NHS  as the top concern of more than 70% of us with only 10% of us worried about the economy. ... 
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Perfect Palindrome

Remember the Election? There certainly seems to have been a strong political flavour for 2010. Our first post of the year was about the NHS Constitution. Our best wishes for 2011 will still have a strong taste of the political but with the emphasis changing from aspiration and announcement to delivery... 
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November News Round-up – Anglo-Saxon lesson included

Public sector cuts are promised but one area of immunity is already very evident. The Department of Health’s print and stationery budget is untouched as more and more pours off the presses about the ramifications of the new policies needed to liberate the Health Service.  In this flood of paper... 
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Where Policy gets Personal – the MAC October Newsletter

The talk is of transformation and the mood is one of confusion and uncertainty. The rumour mills are producing a steady flow of an acid brew – difficult to swallow.  Transformation and change was the message from Sir David and blogged under the heading “St David’s Missal’. Seven... 
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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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Freedom NHS – an Electric LINk for a Citizen Commissioner?

If you can get past the alliterative battering of the title of their newsletter, the Delib Digital Democracy Digest (well you were warned), there is some interesting stuff about the Your Freedom site calling for citizens’ ideas – their reactions, uses etc. What it set off for me was whether... 
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