The Invisible Hand
Posted: 21 May, 2013 by Colin Adamson
These huge hands have become very fashionable – seen most recently by me in Birmingham New Street station concealed for the most part behind the backs of rather embarrassed and giggling teenagers presumably there to give the newly arrived a clue in the chaos of the current works how to find their...
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The Perils of Abroad
Posted: 15 May, 2013 by Colin Adamson
Sighted recently in Nice and a reminder of one of the traditional perils of abroad – much less so now in the modern France where the thrills of the ‘accroupis’ and other eccentricties of French plumbing that so much exercised les Anglais, have gone along with our aversions to their...
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The white coat’s burden – healthcare colonialism
Posted: 8 May, 2013 by Andrew Craig
Colonialism is a mindset. It governs how you see and behave unequally towards others. Few espouse the “white man’s burden” literally nowadays – and Kipling meant it ironically anyway, not as justifying a “noble enterprise”. But there is still a “colonial mentality”...
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Would you recommend a trip to A&E?
Posted: 15 April, 2013 by Dan Wardle
Dan Wardle is our survey guru – who better to ask about the ‘recommend’ question now being put about in the NHS as a key measure of user satisfaction. We have in the past been fans of an approach that uses this question and now we need to know how it stands up under this latest glare...
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Patient Powered Improvement – the new PPI
Posted: 12 April, 2013 by Andrew Craig
The old PPI is dead; long live the new PPI. It is time we started talking about PPI in new terms because we have a new NHS structure in England. Involvement and engagement in the PPI and PPE of old were not ends in themselves, but only means to an end. And that end was and remains: changes through...
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Time to FaceTime the practice nurse
Posted: 31 March, 2013 by Andrew Craig
Roy Lilley nailed the problem in his usual way: I think it is only a matter of time before the public starts to say; ‘Why do I have to queue on the phone to get an appointment with my GP?’ ‘Tell me why I have to have a day off to speak to someone I can talk to on Skype from my desk?’...
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Habemus Epistola Pascha
Posted: 25 March, 2013 by Colin Adamson
Perhaps the time is overdue for the eminences of the national religion that is our NHS to retire into a conclave and finally decide who is in charge. We won’t be holding our breath for the white smoke – those of us left with functioning lungs. We will have staggered away – our walking...
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Patients must stop being just “patients”
Posted: 25 March, 2013 by Andrew Craig
I agree with the NHS Alliance’s “Manifesto for Primary Care” when it says that it is time “for a true primary care led NHS”. Indeed it is and has been really since 1948. But what their manifesto doesn’t seem to get is that sharing decisions with communities...
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Complaints Too Difficile for NHS
Posted: 19 March, 2013 by Colin Adamson
The duo of Ann Clwyd MP and Professor Hart, a Francis Enquiry advisor, are tasked with coming up with recommendations on complaint handling in the NHS and the MAC Partners have sent them an email wishing them well. We added a link to our complaints report dating back to 2006 or so. I was reminded that...
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Have you heard the one about ….
Posted: 15 March, 2013 by Andrew Craig
Probably not, because some GPs don’t want you to hear about it except through them. – and only then if they choose to tell you. This reflects the “patients might like it, management probably won’t” theme in Caroline’s latest blog about carpark GP surgeries. ...
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