Victoria Macdonald
An unusually high number of reports on the care system in England are being released this week – all of them are urging a rethink of the way health and care are delivered.
Victoria Macdonald
Mid-Staffs NHS trust became a byword for neglectful, inhumane care. And with a trashed reputation, and an £11m deficit, turning it around is no longer an option.
Victoria Macdonald
Published exactly a year ago, the Francis report triggered a plethora of reviews into how the NHS is run. But have they led to real improvements in service at a time of extreme financial pressure?
Victoria Macdonald
The row over plans to extract GPs’ patient records and put them onto a massive database shows no signs of abating. And the fact that NHS data is constantly compromised.
Victoria Macdonald
Full-time carers, who take a huge spending burden off government, are facing a £1bn cut in support over the next four years.
Victoria Macdonald
Patients are once again facing a postcode lottery over which drugs they are prescribed. So what can the body that approves treatments for the NHS do to change this?
Victoria Macdonald
What is most surprising about today’s government response to the Francis inquiry is just how many of the recommendations ministers have accepted.
Victoria Macdonald
Accident and emergency units would be no more under plans proposed today by England’s medical director. Instead they would be divided into emergency centres and major emergency centres.
Victoria Macdonald
NHS director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh is due to release a report on urgent care, but with winter fast approaching for struggling A&E departments, what the NHS perhaps needs is radical solutions.
Victoria Macdonald
Two doctors separated by two decades – but their treatment after blowing the whistle on NHS problems shows that little has been learned from the past.
Victoria Macdonald
The vitriol and abuse I received following a story comparing US and UK mortality rates was astonishing. But if we don’t point out the bad and good of the NHS, will it ever achieve its potential?
Victoria Macdonald
The UK’s largest health board is forced to cancel more than 500 NHS appointments, including chemotherapy treatments and inpatient procedures, after an unidentified computer problem.
Victoria Macdonald
MPs call for more openness about NHS care quality and staffing levels, even as another NHS whistleblower is hounded from his job for raising concerns about the well-known hospital he worked at.
Victoria Macdonald
NHS bosses warn the system’s future depends on radical changes. So they are asking us what we think. But will they listen to our answers?
Victoria Macdonald
The headline in the Observer said hospital surgeons would be graded in official league tables for the first time – that was 12 years ago. So why does it take so long to reform the NHS? That was in October 2001.