Archive for category Politics
Probophilia
Posted by James Gubb in Education, Health, Politics on 18/08/2010
In this article, written for Civitas, Dr Peter Davies and Dr Adrian Kenny, two GPs from Yorkshire, draw on an amusing medical analogy – probophilia – to describe a painful affliction across UK public services today – not least the NHS. ’The probophile’, Davies and Kenny write, ‘ places false confidence in numbers , and uses these as his focus for justification of activity, whilst losing sight of what the organisation is actually set up to deliver. The sufferer is either oblivious to his affliction, or if aware falls into learned helplessness and just does what the organisation demands (and sometimes cynically pockets the cash). Fundamentally it is based on the ability of spreadsheets to analyse data without any matching ability going into primary thought about what data is being measured or why it counts for anything’. Have a read: it is unnervingly widespread and surely represents one of the biggest challenges the Coalition Government faces.
A welcome prescription from senior clinicians
Posted by James Gubb in Health, Politics on 07/05/2010
Whoever, whenever and whatever government is formed from the malaise of today’s election results would do well to read this welcome letter to the Guardian from some of the country’s most senior clinicians who argue in no uncertain terms that large-scale reconfiguration of services will be required in the coming years to both pull the NHS through tight financial times, and improve quality of care. Instead of pandering to local hospitals operating often unsustainable 19th century models of health care – as is suggested MPs will do in this HSJ survey – MPs and ministers should be putting their weight behind the difficult decisions PCTs (the commissioners of care in the NHS) will have to be making; drawing chronic care out into the community and centralising specialist services. Decisions that will also, no doubt, entail using providers from outside the current NHS setting… BMA watch out!
Election Quiz
Posted by David Conway in Politics on 20/04/2010
Who said the following and when?
‘Mass unemployment, crime, drug abuse amongst young people, poor education, poverty for some and insecurity for many, are the signs of a social fabric ripped apart at the seams. Our task is to renew and rebuild our nation as a strong and active society sustaining stable community and family life.’
Clue: It wasn’t David Cameron and the remark is over thirteen years old.
PM Calls for Dissolution… Not a Moment Too Soon
Posted by David Conway in Civil Liberty, Health, Politics on 06/04/2010
It has been a very long time since my school-days, but today has something of that same end-of-year feeling that I recall always sensing at the imminent prospect of temporary respite from the tedium of homework and the daily commute to and from school.
Without overmuch hope for any bright new dawn come a new tenancy at Number 10, sufficient clear water still separates the two main parties to give voters with any healthy mistrust of overblown government reason to cast their vote one way rather than another.
On What Planet Does Our Equalities Chief Reside?
Posted by David Conway in Politics, Race and Equality on 02/03/2010
‘For someone from my background, parliament is like a foreign institution and that needs to be changed…. We need to stop discriminating in favour of… white middle-class lawyers… Parliament is 20 per cent Oxbridge PPE graduates who come out of the City and law… [We] should require decision-makers to explain and publish information. We can crack this by talking about it and being transparent about the numbers…’
Thus reportedly said equalities tsar Trevor Phillips recently about what he claims to be the unduly narrow and unrepresentative character of the House of Commons in terms of race and class.
Crime data a Gray area?
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in Crime, Politics on 07/02/2010
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has pertinently illustrated the pitfalls of interpreting crime figures.