GP Federations: win-win for patients, public and frogs

The healthcare trade papers report that the RCGP and BMA (GPC) are pushing the GP Federation idea again, this time as a way to escape what they see as the problems with the commissioning reforms and the vulnerability of Clinical Commissioning Groups.  We welcome that as something that GPs can unite... 
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Decommissioning lessons: accept the anger – and the impact

If you are sitting comfortably, then we’ll begin with the lesson on “decommissioning for GPs”.  When resources are finite –shrinking in real terms given NHS inflation – commissioning to achieve quality, innovation, productivity and prevention (QIPP) can only happen in parallel with decommissioning... 
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Don’t shout “man overboard” quite yet

Reading through the comments on the Future Forum website about choice and competition and accountability to patients, many of them make me want to weep. The  now-closed “listening exercise” about NHS reforms has apparently drowned in a tsunami of misunderstanding, misinformation, half-truths... 
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Patients as customers Prof Field?

Just spent a frustrating couple of hours watching a live Q&A session on the NHS reforms and possible changes to the Health and Social Care Bill with Prof Steve Field (who started off by being an hour late arriving at the Guardian office venue).   How depressing to hear him more or less dismiss patient... 
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Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people – not just staff

Who says consultations don’t make a difference?  Going through the detail of Wednesday’s announcement about the way forward on the NHS reforms in England, reveals that Government has thought better of what was always a daft idea in the Liberating the NHS white paper about the regulation of healthcare... 
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Lansley confirms legal duty of patient and public involvement

A legal duty of patient and public involvement on GP-led commissioning consortia was confirmed by a bullish Secretary of State Andrew Lansley before the Health Select Committee on the 15th at the same time as Ministers published their response to the white paper Liberating the NHS consultation (MAC’s... 
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Expanded Stafford Enquiry – Staff Must be Heard

“These patients were not simply numbers: they were husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandparents. They were people who entered Stafford Hospital and rightly expected to be well cared for and treated. Instead, many suffered horrific experiences that will haunt them and their loved... 
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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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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 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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