Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog
My mission statementThe times we are working in now need a great deal of accelerated change and there must be no negotiating that down. So my mission statement for this part of my consultancy career is to be clear that there needs to be and will be a lot of change from the work that I do with individuals and organisations and if organisations don’t want that, then it is probably best to go somewhere else.
Returning to the theme of “developing the NHS in the long age of austerity”Filed Under (Expenditure, Health Policy, Investment, Reform of the NHS) by Paul on 28-03-2012The phrase “developing the NHS during the long age of austerity” was one that I first used in December 2011. It’s one to which I will return frequently over the next few months. Read the rest of this entry » How might Labour ruin their superior political position on the NHS?Filed Under (Health and Social Care Bill, Health Policy, Labour Party, Reform of the NHS) by Paul on 22-03-2012As the Health and Social Care Bill was clearing its final hurdle in the House of Commons – just after 10 o’clock on Tuesday evening – I was on the Radio 4 programme “The World Tonight” talking about the Bill. I mentioned recently that it’s fun talking to journalists about the Health and Social Care Bill because they, as a matter of professional pride, expect to be able to explain very complex things very simply. Yet they are all to a person defeated by the experience of trying to do that with this Bill. Read the rest of this entry » Since the autumn of last year I have blogged several times about the rather odd truth that the Government really doesn’t seem to care much about the detail of their Health and Social Care Bill. Since June last year they have been agreeing amendments to almost every part of the Bill (and then amendments to these amendments) with a reckless disregard for whether the Bill still makes any sense at all. Read the rest of this entry » Big policy needs smart politicsFiled Under (Health Policy, Social Care) by Paul on 15-03-2012Yesterday I was at the Reform conference on paying for social care for the elderly and the chair, Patrick Nolan, Chief Economist for Reform cited today’s title as something I had said in my blog. So I feel justified to use it to describe today’s post. Read the rest of this entry » As the language of opposition to his Bill becomes more extreme, and as that opposition deepens and broadens, the Secretary of State for Health remains very cheerful. In fact those closer to him than me (yes, I know blog readers will be surprised to know there are a few) all report him as having been in a bad way a few weeks ago but that he is now back to his normal cheerful self. Read the rest of this entry » What’s happening to the future of Foundation Trusts while the Government loses control of its health policy?Filed Under (Foundation Trusts, Health Policy, Reform of the NHS) by Paul on 02-03-2012The point I have been making over the last week is that whilst the Government may have a reform policy, it has lost control of its implementation. So I am sure if you asked a Government Minister what their policy is on FTs you would find that they still believe that all trusts should become one. The political parties that form the Coalition Government both have a chequered history when it comes to NHS Foundation Trust policy. In 2002/3 when the Labour Government was developing the legislation that created them, the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat Parties voted against the legislation all the way through to its passage. Read the rest of this entry » Generally this is what it looks like when a Government loses control of a major policy areaFiled Under (Health and Social Care Bill, Health Policy, Reform of the NHS) by Paul on 28-02-2012Long term readers will remember that near the beginning of April last year the Chair of the Health Select Committee commented that the Government had ‘lost control of its health policy’ For two months the Government outsourced the formulation of their health policy to the Future Forum and then accepted all of the recommendations from the random group of people that made it up. Read the rest of this entry » Over the last couple of weeks two different forms of the politics of opposition to the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill have emerged. This is an interesting piece of politics and I thought it might be useful to give my take on how forms of oppositional politics take different shapes. Read the rest of this entry » Will entrepreneurs be allowed to play any sort of role in developing the NHS?Filed Under (Health Policy, Private Sector, Reform of the NHS) by Paul on 27-01-2012On Tuesday evening I heard an inspiring speaker talk about the role he and his company are playing in the development of efficient hospitals in India. This was the third such talk I have heard over the last 6 months or so – all from Indian entrepreneurs who are driving down the cost of health care and thereby bringing it to many more people than under current provision. Read the rest of this entry » Blair’s and the current Government’s NHS reforms – is there any continuity?Filed Under (Coalition Government, Health and Social Care Bill, Health Policy, Tony Blair, Uncategorized) by Paul on 23-01-2012Last week I posted on the necessity for the Labour opposition to construct a set of medium to long term policies for the NHS which would clearly see them work with it over a period of time that I think of as ‘the long austerity’. I received a number of comments from people who felt that the reforms in which as special adviser to Alan Milburn, John Reid and Tony Blair I was involved from 2001 – 2007 had laid the ground for the current reforms and that I should take some of the blame for the current Government. Read the rest of this entry » |
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