Kings Fund seminar: Obama’s healthcare challenge - what can the UK and the US learn from each other?

Introducing the debate and speakers Simon Stevens and Chris Ham, Kings Fund chief executive Niall Dixon noted the appropriate venue name – the Burdett Room, named for the reformer who introduced benchmarking of hospital performance in the 19th century.

Simon Stevens, UnitedHealth
Why should the UK care about US healthcare system when there’s so much wrong and needing to change? Because:

Good morning, and apologies for the short interruption in normal service. I have been “out in the field” (see Edge Of Darkness for an explanation).

Anyway, I am now back from the field, and I hope you are well. I am fine, thanks for asking.

Since my last post, there have been various helpings of new Maynard Doctrine on here, and a plethora of other events.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE warns that although emotionally appealing, moves towards higher cost-per-QALY thresholds for spending on end-of-life and rarer conditions are inequitable and inefficient

Governments believe that they may lose votes (and know that they will get hammered by the Daily Mail) if they deny we all have a terminal sexually-transmitted disease called life, whose certain clinical outcome is that one day we will surely die. Nowhere is this clearer than when dealing with end-of-life treatments for cancer and other patients.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE suggests that Lord Darzi is a well-intentioned Marxist who does not really understand quality

“If a man is not a socialist at 18, he has no heart. If he is a socialist at 30, he has no head.”

This adage from Winston Churchill seems particularly pertinent to the former comrades who now rule us, as they track even further away form their Marxist and Trotskyite origins and become what the Chinese communist dictator Mao Tse-Tung used to describe as “capitalist running dogs”!

Guest contributor James Gubb, director of the health unit at Civitas (www.civitas.org.uk/nhs), reflects on the new proposals for publishing public feedback on NHS services

The dangers of 'iGP'
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at the Government’s latest gimmick in public service reform: government-sponsored websites on which people can rate their school, GP practice or nanny.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE appraises the cost-benefit possibilities – expected and otherwise – of computerisation in healthcare

We book our travel, hotels and holidays electronically. We access our bank accounts and shop electronically. And we are continually told that information technology is about to revolutionise the NHS.

So why is the revolution such a long time coming?

The first problem is the chaps and chapesses who get paid over £100,000 per year to work in the NHS. There are two overlapping types of such persons.

Good evening. The unavoidable and sad news of the death early this morning of Opposition Leader David Cameron’s son Ivan, aged 6, casts a long shadow over today’s NHS and political news.

The House of Commons was near to its best in the condolences, and it was impressive that even in his grief, Mr Cameron found time to convey his family’s message of thanks to all NHS staff who had helped care for Ivan in his life.

Good afternoon, and I hope you had a good weekend. I will add something longer later on (probably much later on), but for now, have a look at the new instalment of The Maynard Doctrine: www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node/264

It won't make every clinician happy, but there is a great deal of truth in Alan's observation that advocating for doctors to be more involved in NHS management is missing the point: they already are, or can be. The point is that the system is not currently working well in reducing unacceptable variations in care and outcomes.

Go read it now.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE looks at the role of doctors in management ... and finds that though it already exists, it isn't working properly

A fundamental part of the Darzi report is the role of doctors as managers in producing improved quality of patient care in the NHS. The notion is that if doctors are brought into management, resources will be used more efficiently.

Is this assertion a non-sequitur in need of resolution by Sooty and his magic wand? Or is the promised land about to arrive?

Good afternoon. I hope this finds you well.

This morning, I went to the discussion event on strategic commissioning held by and at the Social Market Foundation (www.smf.co.uk). Thery are due to produce a report later in the year on this subject. The purpose of this event was to focus the topic and to share learning and experiences.

Dr. Simon Griffiths of the SMF outlined the policy context framing the question of how to improve strategic commissioning in the light of:
1. devolution of central control
2. personalisation
3. solid performance management
4. equity