Last week the Institute for Government (IfG) and the Health Foundation brought Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, together with three of his predecessors to discuss the 'toughest job in g...
With models of NHS care widely seen as outdated and in need of major overhaul, the health service’s challenges are as complicated as Houdini’s tricks. But it is possible to successfully overcome them ...
"You need to stop the car. The baby is coming." Those remain the ten most heart-stopping words I‘ve ever heard in my life. Fortunately for our family, with the help of a hands-free iPhone on speake...
Everyone loves a good jigsaw. But for policymakers trying to solve the UK productivity puzzle, it might feel like someone has hidden the picture on the front of the box, and several of the pieces have...
Over twenty years ago, my first job at the Department of Health was setting up the NHS Health Technology Assessment programme. At the same time, another programme was coming into being – the Cochrane ...
A night on-call in a radiology department is a microcosm of the direction of travel of medical practice. Pathways are flashed in front of the duty radiologist – ‘if you follow the flowchart the patien...
I had the good fortune to visit Denmark earlier this month to talk at a seminar for leaders from the health regions in Denmark. It’s a time of great change for the Danish in their approach to health c...
I have pondered over this question many times. If I was in charge what would I do, what would I say, what would I want to achieve? During the last three decades working in the NHS (currently as Associ...
I used to play squash. I largely played with my family, and I thought I was pretty good. Three days into university, I happily agreed to a game with a fellow fresher. After 30 minutes of forlornly cha...
I first heard of Kaiser Permanente in 1997. Alan Milburn, the then health minister, had asked officials to look into the approaches Kaiser Permanente used to deliver health care. Finding out who (or w...
