Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog

Now I’m not saying that when I was advising new Labour Ministers on health reform that we didn’t sometimes do the wrong thing. Of course we did. But generally when someone came up with a really crazy idea someone would say “Hang on – let’s just think about that for a bit longer shall we?” A warning bell would go off in somebody’s head – and we would all calm down. Read the rest of this entry »

I crave a little self indulgence from the reader for the first half of this post since it covers an issue that stayed near the front of my mind every week for six years of my working life.

Last Friday saw several of the broadsheets rehearsing the history of the use of targets in the NHS over the last decade. They were doing so because the current Secretary of State, having spent 7 years railing against politically motivated targets, set his own last Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Thursday I blogged about a report which examined different approaches to losing weight, and received some interesting comments which I will talk about later in the week.

But by chance this post was published on the day that the agreement between the Government and Circle at Hinchingbrooke was finally signed and some people want to know my thoughts about this. Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned yesterday I spoke last week at the National Association of Primary Care Conference. What was really interesting was listening to the Secretary of State speak just before my panel session began. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I spoke at the National Association of Primary Care Conference and was interested to hear the Secretary of State. As I shall explain tomorrow it was good to hear him articulate a narrative explaining why his reforms were important to an audience of future leaders of Clinical Commissioning Groups. (Even if that narrative failed to encompass the real life experiences of creating CCGs that those in the room expressed to him). Read the rest of this entry »

(In yesterday’s post I made the point that I felt that the Secretary of State had shifted his position and now wanted to act to stop the bad results of the variation of practice with the NHS. This met with a number of responses from readers. Some of the early Twitter comments felt I was being incurably optimistic that the Secretary of State would really begin to tackle variation of practice by radically changing hospital organisation. It’s strange to be in the position of defending a very damaged Secretary of State, but I feel he has come to this position not through choice, but because he has had to.

18 months into the job he becomes responsible for the NHS and everything that happens to it. That means that the results of the CQC inspection that was published the week before stops being ‘the fault of the Labour Government’ and becomes the fault of this Government. Given that he has now agreed a set of changes to his Bill which demonstrate that he is firmly responsible for the NHS, it’s about now in the Parliament when, so far as the public are concerned, he becomes clearly responsible.

Therefore when any credible body now criticises the NHS he will need to say what he is going to do and given that he will have to say what he is going to do, someone will start to hold him to account for it.

This will also happen to the Government in other areas of policy and economics. For as long as possible they will say that it’s the previous lot’s fault, but sooner or later the public will think that too much time has passed since the election and that argument will no longer work. This responsibility has come earlier in health than in other policy areas because the last 15 months have been such a noisy political mess over NHS reform. The public clearly know that so far as the NHS is concerned there is a new Government – because there has been so much noise and such a mess.

So my belief that the Secretary of State has changed his position on tackling variation in the NHS does not come from a naive position that he has suddenly changed his mind about his responsibility for improving bad practice. No, I believe he has started to take this seriously because the public and the voters have recognised that after 18 months in the job he is in charge. From here on in. It is his responsibility).

Today I want to comment on another part of his speech that will obviously become a theme. On 27 September I mentioned the fact that when the Secretary of State named 20 trusts that were potentially clinically and financially unstable because of PFI deals he managed – in one speech – to make the leadership of trusts come out in support of their PFI deals. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, 18 months into his tenure as Secretary of State, Andrew Lansley made a speech at Reform where he unfortunately confirmed that he was going to bail out inefficient hospitals. I will return to that later in the week. Read the rest of this entry »

(One of the great experiences of writing this blog is that it is read by doctors. Recently I discovered that one of the great things about doctors is that they know Latin. At the beginning of this week in developing this argument about centrifugal and centripetal forces I got my ‘fugal’ and my ‘petal’ mixed up. A number of doctors very kindly responded saying that ‘petal’ related in Latin to ‘the centre’ and therefore centripetal forces were dragging things to the centre and conversely centrifugal forces dragged thing to the periphery.

So thanks for letting me know! And my apologies to those who have been confused in trying to understand not only NHS reform, but also the creation of the universe – which as all of you will know came after the big bang and involves some large centrifugal forces that are pushing matter every million years or so further and further away (centrifugally) from where the bang took place).

[I am of the generation that thrilled to Peter Cook (and Dudley Moore). In “Beyond the Fringe” there was a great sketch where Pete was convinced that the only reason he did not become a High Court judge is because he never had ‘the Latin’. I feel it must be the same for me and becoming a doctor] Read the rest of this entry »

(Note: There was a comment yesterday from The Jobbing Doctor that I would like to share with everyone. The Jobbing Doctor seemed to think that I was masquerading as being impartial. I apologise if I have ever given that impression. I am partial. I have an argument and I have a position. What I try and do is explain that position, and how that position makes sense of what is going on in the NHS.

He also quite rightly pointed out that I was involved at the heart of Government between the years 2001-2007 when I advised two Secretaries of State and the then Prime Minister. My experience of carrying out those roles deeply informs the position that I have and I am very happy to take responsibility for my part in those reforms.

Without having played that part and without standing up for it, I would have very little to say).

Yesterday’s Guardian had one of those revelation/leak stories that are always fun. Read the rest of this entry »

A key point to remember is that this Bill, despite all the carnage that it has been through, is still only at the halfway stage of its journey through the Houses of Parliament – and the second half is likely to be harder than the first. Read the rest of this entry »