Posts Tagged choice
Patient choice falls again
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 13/12/2007
In March this year, 48% of patients recalled being offered a choice of hospital for their first outpatient appointment. Since then, in every survey the DH has conducted, this figure has fallen. In the latest survey – conducted in July – it stands at just 43%. This really is quite a feat – though not a very impressive one.
Show me the money!
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 22/11/2007
Despite Alan Johnson’s protestations in the FT that the newspaper is ‘wrong to suggest the government is reversing the NHS reforms’, few are that inclined to believe him. As Blair’s former health advisor, Julian Le Grand, has said: the government no longer seems to believe in, or at least wants to pay for, the idea of using competition to drive up standards in the NHS, following its decision to slash the second wave of the ISTC programme last week. But then along comes what might possibly more than a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
Don’t force children to play the Government’s war-games
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 31/10/2007
More powers, new targets, less tolerance for failure, a boost to several central government run schemes (Teach First and Teach Next), are the only discernible content of Brown’s latest speech on education. The tone of the speech makes it sound as if the government, having annexed and occupied the education system decades ago, still finds itself combating a never-ending insurgency of ‘failure’. These forces of failure cannot be tolerated and must be eradicated.