Power to the people
Paul Hodgkin argues that complaints are escaping their institutional cages, and providers need a new and better response as they take up home on the web.
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Keogh extends ‘outlier’ inquiry
The NHS Commissioning Board has announced that it is widening its inquiry into hospitals with apparently worrying mortality rates.
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NHS CB tries to spot further Mid Staffs’
The NHS Commissioning Board has ordered an immediate inquiry into the five hospitals that show up as outliers on the NHS’ current mortality indicator.
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It’s big, but is it clever?
Robert Francis’ final report into the Mid Staffordshire scandal is huge, but will its impact be in proportion to its size, asks Lyn Whitfield.
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National feedback system needed
The Francis report says there should be a nationally consistent way for patients to feedback online and in real-time about their experiences in hospital.
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Francis call for standards backed by law
Robert Francis QC has called for the publication of a list of fundamental standards defining basic NHS care at the end of his long inquiry into the scandal at Mid Staffordshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
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Francis calls for records and open data
Robert Francis QC has backed investment in electronic patient records and the wider publication of NHS data at the end of his inquiry into the scandal at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
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Indicators and placards
The Mid Staffs scandal has already left one legacy, in the form of a new mortality indicator for the NHS. But questions remain about how it is constructed; and how useful trust-level indicators are, anyway. Lyn Whitfield reports.
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Power to the people
Paul Hodgkin, the founder and chief executive of Patient Opinion, argues that public feedback, not public inquiries, are the way to get compassion back into the NHS, in the week that the Mid Staffs inquiry reports.
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