Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog

Given the interest in policy development in the NHS and given the turmoil about the level of resources in all other public services it is easy to forget that over the next few years – and in some cases the next few weeks – there is going to be a series of problems with resources for the NHS which will become increasingly public. Whilst the public presentation of these problems will all be about deficits of one kind or another, their causes will spring from very different policy interventions. It’s important to try and tease out what they are as and when they happen. Read the rest of this entry »

At all times in the development of the NHS this is an important issue. The NHS depends on all its staff for it to work at all – let alone well. So for it to produce any outcomes at all it depends upon the active involvement of hundreds of thousands of staff at all sorts of grades. Read the rest of this entry »

Conservative policy documents for several years leading up to the election had pledged to “remove politics from the day-to-day running of the NHS” and to “end political micro-management”

This language was repeated in the Manifesto and has been repeated since then in both speeches and in the White Paper itself. Read the rest of this entry »

During August a lot of people are on holiday so I am going to post a weekly blog on a background issue to the current politics of the NHS before getting back to the detail of the current policy and implementation shifts in September.

The four will be

1. Her Majesty’s Treasury why does it consistently resist NHS reforms that are based upon improving productivity through organisational incentives?
2. Keeping politics out of the NHS .The Coalition government’s stated intention and how and why it is returning to ever more detailed political management.
3. The BMA and the other NHS unions
4. NHS resources over the next few years. Pressure points and deficits to come.

Read the rest of this entry »