Archive for June, 2008
Darzi: A grand vision but the system will work against it
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 30/06/2008
Lord Darzi today publishes his eagerly awaited Next Stage Review of NHS policy.
Ostensibly it heralds the end of the top-down era; a shift away from central targets to more self-sustaining means of driving performance, based on user-empowerment, information, choice and competition – but the system will work against it.
Atten-shun!!
Posted by Pete Quentin in European Union on 30/06/2008
When Slovenia shuffles off the podium of the EU Presidency tomorrow, France will assume the European Union’s top post for the second half of 2008. Among its priorities, the French leadership has asserted its ambition to formalise a common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
However, France must prove that the EU needs a common ESDP to supersede member states’ security policies, and furthermore to demonstrate that the EU can be trusted to manage highly sensitive security and defence issues. ‘Is the EU really up to the job?’, asks Claire Daley.
Mobilising entry into work
Posted by Pete Quentin in Education on 27/06/2008
This week Gordon Brown gave us his assessment of the factors thwarting social mobility in Britain today. Where he was right, was to point to the impact which unemployment had on social mobility under Thatcher. Where he was wrong, was to ignore the role which his very own government is playing in thwarting social mobility today – again through unemployment.
Licensed to hug
Posted by James Gubb in Political Correctness on 26/06/2008
The dramatic escalation of child protection measures has succeeded in poisoning the relationship between the generations and creating an atmosphere of suspicion that actually increases the risks to children, according to a new study released today by Civitas.
In Licensed to Hug Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, argues that children need to have contact with a range of adult members of the community for their education and socialisation, but ‘this form of collaboration, which has traditionally underpinned intergenerational relationships, is now threatened by a regime that insists that adult/child encounters must be mediated through a security check’ (p.xii).
A small step, but where’s the giant leap?
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 25/06/2008
The Conservatives made a first small step in the right direction on NHS policy yesterday, reaffirming their pledge to scrap the endless targets that have – to not put too fine a point on it – bludgeoned the life out of the health service over the past decade or so; and instead focus on outcomes. As this blog has written many times – such as here and here – targets are a sure way to demoralise staff and distort clinical priorities like none other. Outcomes are what we should be looking at.
Why Britain Needs to Get More Butane Than More Like Bhutan
Posted by David Conway in Economics on 24/06/2008
Much of the western world, including Britain, currently seems in process of economic melt-down. To take our minds off all the depressing economic news, and hence off how lamentably the present Government has prepared this last decade for the years of national belt-tightening that now lie ahead, we need reminding that, as well as love, among other things money can’t buy is happiness.
Step forward on cue to deliver the message none but the present Government’s happiness tzar, Lord Layard about whom there is a big feature in today’s Guardian, just about as friendly a newspaper to the present Government as it is possible for one to be.