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The Patient from Hell urges GPs to get involved in implementing the reforms as he considers what 2013 holds for healthcare The year 2011 was the year of sound and fury, as the health bill staggered drunkenly through parliament, attacked on every side. 2012 was the year of planning the reforms enshrined in the new act. And 2013 will be the year of implementation, when it will be revealed whether the planning has been sufficiently rigorous or whether the act is fatally flawed. It will be a year when everybody will have to work incredibly hard and incredibly smartly, to get it all up and running,...

Our next online live discussion will run from noon to 2pm on Monday 3 December, and will explore how managers can support staff during challenging times for the health service At the King's Fund annual conference on Wednesday the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, highlighetd the importance of supporting staff . He told delegates: "The King's Fund and many others have shown that staff who feel engaged and valued in an open and supportive working environment deliver better care and support for patients. "And yet in these highly charged, busy, stressful environments, too many are left...

The Patient from Hell offers a few words of advice to Dr Mark Porter, the new chair of the BMA Dear Dr Mark Porter, Congratulations on your election as chair of the BMA. Or, perhaps I should commiserate with you for inheriting a poisoned chalice. It is presumptuous of me to offer you advice. I am just an octogenarian patient with no medical qualifications but quite a lot of medical conditions. I suppose I may be one of the most frequent flyers on the NHS, and therefore one of your best customers. Perhaps my views should command some respect. Having been a BMA-watcher for some years, I believe your...

A quarter of GPs wouldn't use their local hospital themselves, according to a survey. But are they prepared to demand improvements, asks *** Vinegar Some readers see me as the Great Satan, because I dare to criticise certain luddite practices and attitudes in the NHS. But my criticisms are as nothing compared to what doctors say about each other. Pulse Magazine recently published a survey on what 500 GPs thought about their local hospitals . It was not a pretty picture. Only 74% of GPs would use their local hospital for themselves and their families. You could interpret this as a ringing endorsement...

Royal College of General Practitioners says amendments to health bill which includes clearer ministerial accountability in the NHS 'has caused greater confusion' The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has heaped more pressure on Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms by calling for David Cameron to withdraw the health and social care bill, despite the government putting forward amendments to the legislation. The government tabled 137 amendments to its controversial bill on Wednesday in an effort to address concerns that have been repeatedly raised by healthcare professionals. The college...

Telehealth has benefits for patients with long-term conditions but despite industry excitement there are still areas of concern, argues Jeremy Wyatt The Whole System Demonstrators showed that, "if used correctly", telehealth reduced death rates by 45%, NHS resource usage by 15-20% and tariff costs by 8% . With these striking results and the launch of the industry/NHS funded 3 Million Lives campaign, telehealth is steaming out of its backwater into the clinical mainstream. Clearly it will help many patients navigate their long-term conditions (LTCs), and I personally would recommend it...

One of the NHS's new organisations seems to have a gap between rhetoric and practice, finds the Patient from hell Beware GPs who try to make life easier for themselves at the expense of their patients. I have a tale to tell, which could be a warning of things to come across the NHS. My daughter and her family live in the West Country. They went to their GP with worries about my teenage granddaughter's back pains, which started a few months ago, probably as a result of riding and holding a cello incorrectly. They started getting calls, not from the GP or their local hospital, but from a...