It is in the interests of the Commission to play countries off against each other in order to demonstrate the inescapable logic of the “European project”. The Commission suffers from the so-called “secretariat problem”: it is not a member state… Read More »Does the European Commission ‘game’ the member states?
With the release of the latest analysis from the King’s Fund (here), heightened attention is being paid to NHS performance. It may only be a coincidence that an election is looming in which the NHS may be an election puppet.… Read More »When underperformance is policy
Political manifestos that promise to spend more money are failing to grapple with the powerful underlying forces at work in healthcare. Indeed, they may be ignoring these in order to score (cheap?) political points with voters. There is clear evidence… Read More »Political football
The direction the NHS is now taking is evidence that some aspects of NHS performance arise from fundamental design flaws. The mistake was likely made in 1948 to separate healthcare and social care. Today, as care processes shift into the… Read More »Ant hills: design logic
NHS England and other English health organisations have produced a five year ‘forward view’ [here]. The refreshingly short and precise document establishes a new approach to the English health service, something political reform has failed to achieve since perhaps the… Read More »No skin in the game
Ebola is really quite a horrible little bit of DNA. Its route to humans is via the fruit bat and between humans through body fluids. So much for the public health model. The virus is taking advantage of humans with… Read More »Thinking like a virus
Right now, there is the proposed NHS Reinstatement Bill, a lobby document which lays out a way to reverse many NHS reforms. This lobby document, which is what is it, is familiar reading, and brings back various structures that in… Read More »Who thinks these things up?
Measuring Up: the health of NHS Cancer Services is a report from Cancer Research UK. I have no difficulty accepting much of what they have discovered and the report’s key points are sensible. But, two main conclusions are unsurprising and… Read More »Where’s a good paradigm when you need one?
Sir Andrew Dillon, the erstwhile leader of NICE as said that it is irrational for the Cancer Drug Fund to pay for drugs that NICE has turned down. He’s right of course, it is irrational but is it wrong? The… Read More »Broken logic: NICE and the Rule of Rescue
This report on the regulation of private hospitals in England from the Centre for Health and the Public Interest is important, but 15 years too late. The UK has had and continues to have a love/hate relationship with the private… Read More »Think again: Public versus private hospitals