Stormy Autumn Newsletter

It wasn’t that Storm Sandy was particularly violent. Apparently it was just big and slow and coincided with cold air from the Arctic and some very high tides. It was the combination of factors that hit so hard. Just like the NHS? The NHS is big and slow – it covers the whole country and seems... 
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Engagement entryism – otherwise known as ‘Get Stuck In’

By all means add your voice to the almost 600,000 who have signed the 38 degrees petition against the NHS Bill. But don’t stop there. What concerned citizens should then do is consider some “engagement entryism” at local level. That is where the real issues will be fought out and that... 
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Scottish NHS – SWAG-ering Success?

Staff engagement as part of an innovative approach to industrial relations  is the key to improved patient care says a Nottingham Business School report on NHS Scotland. The authors claim that “Partnership in NHS Scotland has matured into probably the most ambitious and important contemporary... 
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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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