Victoria Macdonald
Should we be sick of being told not to be sick at the weekend?
Even elective surgery is safer at the beginning of the week, new research finds – but it’s not quite as simple as that.
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Victoria Macdonald
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Victoria Macdonald
Mid-Staffs scandal: new duty to report deaths
In the government’s response to the Mid-Staffordshire inquiry report hospitals and care homes will have to inform people if they believe treatment of care has caused death or serious injury.
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Victoria Macdonald
800 fewer nurses as NHS refunds £2.2bn to Treasury
NHS bosses are struggling to save £20bn over four years and the number of NHS nurses fell 800 last month, but a £2.2bn underspend at the Department of Health has gone back to the Treasury.
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Victoria Macdonald
The new NHS: watch out for conflicts of interest
From April, GPs will become responsible for most of the NHS budget. What happens if family doctors want to refer patients to private firms in which they have a financial interest?
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Victoria Macdonald
NHS whistleblowers gagging to speak out
The inquiry into the Mid Staffs hospital scandal called for an end to gagging clauses that silence whistleblowers. But will NHS staff who speak out be treated any better in the future?
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Victoria Macdonald
Mid-Staffordshire scandal: day of reckoning beckons
The Francis inquiry report into the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire Foundation Trust will soon be published – but will those held responsible be held to account?
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Victoria Macdonald
What lessons can be learned from Hayley Fullerton’s death?
Hayley Fullerton had just turned one when she died from heart failure in hospital, despite her family warning staff her condition was worsening. Could her death have been prevented?
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Victoria Macdonald
Jeremy Hunt’s conference message to the social care sector
The new health secretary was not at his most assured in his speech to the Conservative Party conference. But he had messages for the social care and charities sectors.
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Victoria Macdonald
Acute hospitals on the brink of collapse
Bad news for the newly installed health ministers from the Royal College of Physicians which warns in a report that patient care is threatened by hospitals under strain.
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Victoria Macdonald
Lansley brought down by love of unsexy detail
Andrew Lansley’s obsession with the finer details of health policy could explain his unwanted shuffle away from the Department of Health, Victoria Macdonald writes.
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FactCheck: Is Labour right about the ‘commercialisation’ of the NHS?
What’s the difference between the government’s new “Healthcare UK” plan to export NHS experitise abroad, and Labour’s NHS Global plan? Plagued by a sense of déjà-vu, FactCheck dons its white coat.
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Victoria Macdonald
Why has it rained on the doctors’ parade?
Why has the doctors’ industrial action turned into a damp squib, asks Victoria MacDonald.
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Victoria Macdonald
NHS treatments: what would you prioritise?
There is nothing new about treatments being rationed in the NHS, but if you had to decide, what would you prioritise, asks Victoria Macdonald.
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Victoria Macdonald
Doctors’ strike will challenge the government
Wherever people’s sympathies lie, this is a difficult moment for the government, to be presiding over policies which will lead to the first industrial action by doctors since the 70s.
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Victoria Macdonald
Standing by IVF and HRT?
Victoria Macdonald writes on the funding of IVF and a recent paper on Hormone Replacement Therapy.