The government has just released its Equality Analysis of the contract it intends to impose on junior doctors. Its ‘tortured logic’ reveals much about what the government really thinks about gender equality and work and family life issues, argues Jill Rubery. If you delve into the 38-page document from the Department of Health, and work […]
Can lunch clubs save the NHS?
Social prescriptions have been hailed as a wonderful way of improving health outcomes, at low cost. But Paul Wilson argues that we need less rhetoric and more sound research to evaluate project results. The Queen’s Speech has seen the new government reconfirm commitments to make an extra £8bn of funding available to the NHS. But […]
CCGs go primetime but reforms have spun a complex web of accountability
The major reforms stemming from the Health and Social Care Act 2012 have permeated Saturday night television, writes Dr Julia Segar. But while Clinical Commissioning Groups may have made it onto BBC One’s Casualty, a recent storyline misrepresented their ability to hold A&E departments to account; although given the complexity of the new system, this is perhaps […]
Learning to live with the Frankenstein’s Monster that is modern nursing
Today’s nurses have been accused of being “too posh to wash” and lacking compassion, writes Stuart Butler. But unless policymakers are willing to free up their time through further recruitment, or abandon their obsession with targets, they should learn to live with the professionalized work-force that is entirely of their own making. Rather uniquely […]