Integration Holy Grail could be wishful thinking

Integrated services reflecting individual needs and marshalling skills and resources across the health and care sectors for the right people in the right place at the right time.  That’s what we should have now after 60+ years of a nationally funded health service.  But we don’t have it... 
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The biggest something-or-other in the world

Remember the Government’s  rather breathless aspiration back in the summer of 2010 to turn the NHS into the biggest social enterprise sector in the world?   If you work for Central Surrey Healthcare -  the social enterprise owned and run by 770 entrepreneurial community nurses, therapists and... 
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Collaborate on neurological commissioning – Lansley

This afternoon  we got the answer to one of our questions straight from the horse’s mouth on national radio.  Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley answered  on Radio 4′s PM phone in about the new NHS reforms the question we and others have been posing about how the more complex,... 
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Healthy Lives, Healthy People: nudge or fudge?

Is it nudge or fudge? Your verdict on Andrew Lansley’s public health white paper Healthy Lives, Healthy People: our strategy for public health in England launched in Wandsworth on Tuesday, ultimately depends on your philosophical stance about what’s desirable  – and possible – when it... 
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SOS in techie info pile-up

I logged on for the webchat with the Secretary of State from 1.30-2.30 on Tuesday afternoon hoping to learn more about the most recent consultations on the “information revolution” and “greater choice and control”. It was a bit of a technical pile-up really.  The screen displayed loads of questions... 
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E-App Ahoy! New Navigational Aid for Commissioners

Off last night to the official launch of the Neurological Commissioning Support’s exciting new online tool for commissioners “NeuroNavigator”.  Keen readers of the MAC blog will know that the partnership worked with the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) a couple of years ago... 
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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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Turning government on its head – we hope so

To coincide with the publication of Liberating the NHS, the Department of Health has published its departmental priorities in the form of a Structural Reform Plan.  SRPs are required by the Coalition Government from all government departments. Head stands SRPs are designed, in the word’s of the... 
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Liberation root and branch style

Liberating the NHS the new Health White Paper on “equity and excellence” could turn out to be, in Chris Ham’s prophetic words today, the “biggest organisational upheaval in the health service, probably, since its inception”.  This is about England only of course: the contrast with... 
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A long hot summer for user and citizen engagement?

The budget sparked a debate  about postponing retirement and getting your pensions.  Elder citizens and users who are involved in public engagement must be heard in any such  debate about retirement ages and reform of the job market. They frequently form a majority  of volunteers in citizen participant... 
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