Hospital Doctor articles from July 2006

Hospital Doctor archives from July 2006

Big Brother creates crisis of confidence.
July 6, 2006... Low confidence in their regulator, fears about the quality of juniors and a dampening of enthusiasm for licensing and revalidation were just some of the opinions expressed by doctors in the GMC's Annual Tracking Survey. Liz Fox reports on what...

Insurers keen to take on PCT role.
July 6, 2006... commissioning BUPA Health Insurance and AXA-PPP Healthcare have indicated their interest in taking over the role of primary care trusts (PCTs) as commissioners of care. The DoH advertised last week for commercial organisations,...

letters.
July 6, 2006... Self-scrips not 'banned' Sir, You report an instance of a doctor being reprimanded by a pharmacist for prescribing temazepam for himself after jet lag - a drug that is available over the counter in many overseas countries...

Welsh SAS ask for regional contract.(Welsh staff and associate specialist)(Brief article)
July 6, 2006... sas contract By Melanie Newman melanie.newman@rbi.co.uk Welsh staff and associate specialist (SAS) doctors want the right to vary the new SAS contract in Wales, as happened with the consultant contract. The BMA's Welsh SAS...

No ISTC guarantee over NHS staff redundancies.(independent sector treatment centres)(national health services)
July 6, 2006... employment conditions By Rob Finch rob.finch@rbi.co.uk Staff made redundant from NHS units will not be able to transfer their jobs to independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs), Government officials have revealed. ...

How you can get involved.(Hospital Doctor Awards 2006 )(Editorial)
July 6, 2006... editorial comment Week in, week out, this column gives you the magazine's view of the topical issue of the day. But not this week. Instead I'm simply going to remind you about a raft of Hospital Doctor initiatives in which you might want...

Debt busters attacked.(Brief article)
July 6, 2006... turnaround teams The Government's policy of sending 'turnaround teams' of financial specialists to slash expenditure at ailing primary care trusts (PCTs) has been criticised by managers. Giving evidence to a Commons select inquiry into...

Exams spark register row.
July 6, 2006... By Melanie Newman melanie.newman@rbi.co.uk A surgeon has joined the specialist register despite repeatedly failing the final specialty examination. Of 17 successful surgical applicants to the specialist register under 'Article 14'...

Pain experts say tariff guidelines are unsafe.
July 13, 2006... Funding By Melanie Newman melanie.newman@rbi.co.uk Complex pain management techniques, which experts say must be performed as inpatient procedures, can only be paid for as outpatient cases under the DoH's new payment system. ...

O&G consultants face axe.
July 13, 2006... Redundancies By Melanie Newman melanie.newman@rbi.co.uk Two of the 13 obstetric and gynaecology consultants at Hinchingbrooke Healthcare NHS Trust in Cambridgeshire are facing compulsory redundancy, along with a departmental...

Official statistics miss true picture on suspension.(Brief article)
July 13, 2006... suspensions More than 150 doctors are currently suspended across the UK - and most of them are not included in any official list. Figures obtained by the Daily Mirror under the Free-dom of Information Act have revealed that there...

Trusts admit poor quality.(Brief article)
July 13, 2006... standards Two-thirds of NHS trusts have admitted they are not meeting health quality and safety standards. Trusts' self-assessments to the Healthcare Commission, which replaced star ratings, show a quarter admit to falling short of at...

Doctors engulfed by wave of complaints.
July 13, 2006... By Liz Fox elizabeth.fox@rbi.co.uk Complaints about doctors have shot up by more than 20 per cent in the past two years, the GMC has revealed. In 2005, the GMC received almost 5,000 complaints - up from 3,926 in 2003. The Medical...

Medical regulation bombshell for GPs.
July 13, 2006... * Revalidation revealed * Burden of proof reduced * GMC weakened Cathy Comerford GPs could be judged unfit to practise with much greater ease, under proposals from the Chief Medical Officer, which would radically lower the bar on...

Autism affects 1%.
July 13, 2006... Research Autistic disorders affect around 1% of ten-year-olds, according to a large UK study. The authors estimated the prevalence of childhood autism to be 48.9 per 10,000, and 116.1 per 10,000 for all autism and related spectrum...

Dismissed but not redundant.
July 13, 2006... editorial comment Employees are expensive. And whenever businesses start discussing costs savings, staff redundancies will always be near the top of the list. But employees are more important than ever. Businesses increasingly...

Fees set for autumn pneumococcal drive.
July 13, 2006... Immunisation Adam Legge GPs will be paid [pounds sterling]15.02 per child to start the pneumococcal immunisation programme in September, the Government has announced. Children aged over two months and under two years will be offered...

letters.
July 13, 2006... We should all be raging Sir, I am a 40-something, white, British, consultant surgeon - and bloody angry over the plight of our predominantly young Asian colleagues. I am also saddened by the muted response. Why aren't the colleges and the...

PBC framework sets out incentives plan.(practice-based commissioning)(Brief article)
July 13, 2006... Commissioning PCTs can offer GPs and alternative providers time-limited financial incentives to provide new services, the Govern-ment says. The DoH last week published a practice-based commissioning (PBC) framework document setting out...

Reality behind Sir Ian's rosy picture.
July 13, 2006... Acting NHS chief executive Sir Ian Carruthers's optimistic verdict on the health service has many doubters, reports Francesca Robinson The NHS is not only delivering more and improved health services, but also a much better quality of care...

Waiting times for tests are longest in West Country.(Brief article)
July 13, 2006... Diagnostics GPs in the West Country face the longest waits when getting diagnostic tests done for their patients, according to official figures. The Government has published national data on waiting times for diagnostic tests for the...

Self-regulation in name alone.
July 20, 2006... editorial comment Doctors were always going to be made to pay for Harold Shipman's murderous instincts. When Dame Janet Smith, chairman of the Shipman Inquiry, savaged the GMC back in December 2004 for protecting the interests of...

Local doctors to be GMC 'police'.
July 20, 2006... regulation The medical profession should be policed through local networks of practising doctors who act as GMC 'affiliates', Prof Sir Liam Donaldson has proposed. The CMO envisages a medically-qualified affiliate in each hospital and...

Professionally-led regulation at risk.(Brief article)
July 20, 2006... GMC Elected GMC members should be replaced by members appointed by the independent Public Appoint-ments Commission, according to the review of medical regulation. Although the review recommends that the majority of GMC members should...

Doctors to pay for cost of revalidation.
July 20, 2006... revalidation proposals By Liz Fox elizabeth.fox@rbi.co.uk Doctors will be liable for the [pounds sterling]18m cost of their own revalidation under a two-strand process set out by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). The first...

Justice hanging in the balance for profession.
July 20, 2006... CMO's review of medical regulation By Liz Fox elizabeth.fox@rbi.co.uk Far more doctors could have sanctions imposed on their registration after the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) recommended the standard of proof be lowered for...

Payment by Results slated.
July 20, 2006... Funding By Melanie Newman melanie.newman@rbi.co.uk An independent review has heavily criticised the DoH's handling of the Payment by Results (PbR) tariff. The tariff, published in January 2006, was inaccurate and published...

Selling off commissioning.
July 20, 2006... One way or another, it seems private companies will get a toe-hold in commissioning NHS healthcare, as Melanie Newman reports A DoH advertisement suggesting commercial organisations could soon be commissioning healthcare on behalf of...

letters.
July 20, 2006... College check is adequate Sir, It is my understanding that the royal colleges scrutinise applications to the Postgraduate Medical Educational Training Board (PMETB) under article 14, and that the PMETB awards a Certificate of Completion...

BMA rejects SAS contract without ballot.
July 27, 2006... The BMA's Staff and Associate Specialist Committee (SASC) has rejected proposals for a new contract without putting them to ballot. The SASC said that NHS Employers' (NHSE) proposal did not do enough to improve career progression and that...