Context The term “wealth creation” has found its way into the NHS language over the past three years. It is one of those terms that is easily and frequently used by politicians and the media but quite difficult to define. This is certainly true for many public policy buzzwords, and would not be a concern...Read More

In December last year, Adrian Bull and I had the privilege of attending the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) in Doha, Qatar. Around 1,000 delegates attended and the agenda was simply too long and rich to give it justice here in a few lines but there are some videos and the eight conference papers...Read More

The NHS is said to be one of our most cherished institutions.  At the same time, it has become one of our most popular punch bags.  Newspaper campaigns and populist headlines shout repeated criticism.  Politicians cite ‘declining standards’ to accuse their opponents of failed stewardship.  Selective quotes from regulatory bodies and international reports (such as...Read More

Fancy a wee sweating with your boss? This could be something that employees in Germany will have to add to the “interests” section on their CV according to the weekly magazine Die Zeit. At the local branch of Sparkasse a regional bank in Bad Kreuznach employees are encouraged to participate in a kind of hopscotch...Read More

Isn’t it? After all, breastfeeding for six months is what NHS Choices, the WHO and UNICEF are recommending as “best practice”. So are pretty much all the midwives and health visitors I have come across not to mention the NCT. But it isn’t, or at best we don’t know whether it actually is. It’s not...Read More

A few days ago Jeremy Hunt announced a buddying scheme for NHS hospitals. In this scheme “good” hospitals will get financial incentives to support “failing” hospitals.  At this stage, a lot of the detail is still missing including a robust definition of what constitutes a “good” hospital or what form the buddying will take (e.g....Read More