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The health service no longer offers cradle to grave care, which is free at the point of use. It needs a new financial model The Department of Health has traditionally encouraged NHS surgeons to operate a high patient turnover with as short a waiting time as possible – the faster patients are treated, the more "efficient" the service is considered. But lately, doctors have been under pressure to do exactly the opposite. Operative options for several common conditions are being restricted by the reclassification of certain treatments as "procedures of limited clinical value"....

In the lead up to the implementation of the NHS friends and family test, a toolkit created by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement offers new insights into how patients feel Getting an insight into patients' perspectives is vital if we are to improve their experience of care. Understanding how patients feel about the care they receive can only truly be achieved by looking through their eyes. In 2010-11 the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement held a series of focus groups with patients and relatives; these groups included ethnic minority groups, older people and parents...

Half of the NHS is shiny and full of well-meaning planners. The other bumbles on with changes dreamt up 10 years ago I find I lead a double life. On one side, I am lucky enough to attend upbeat seminars and conferences about the future of the NHS. I learn about how the regulatory bodies like the Care Quality Commission and Monitor are getting their act together, to stop anything like Mid Staffs or Winterbourne View ever happening again. I hear how the close integration of the NHS and local government's social care is going to provide a seamless care pathway for me when I become senile and incontinent...

To coincide with world diabetes day, the chief executive of Diabetes UK explains the importance of early diagnosis – and getting commissioners on board Being seriously ill in an A&E department is a pretty bad way to learn that you have to live with a lifelong condition. Far too many kids who develop type 1 diabetes are diagnosed only when they are in collapse with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Prompt diagnosis can make all that different. The right treatment at the right time could prevent about 500 children a year from becoming very ill with DKA before they are diagnosed. That's why Diabetes...

The Patient from Hell gets the impression that social care has taken on integration big time, but clinicians at all levels still hardly know what the word means Jeremy Hunt, apparently, baffled the Conservative party conference, with talk about the coming "integration" of the NHS . Yes, integration means many different things to different people, and I am not surprised that Tory activists were confused, but it does mean something very specific in the context of the Lansley reforms. It means that patients are about to receive joined-up care from both the NHS and social services, working...

Live coverage of the FTN annual conference in Liverpool, including coverage of David Behan's plenary speech Jessica Fuhl

Healthcare managers gathering for the Foundation Trust Network annual conference next week have some tough decisions ahead of them Healthcare managers will be gathering for the Foundation Trust Network conference next week at a time of growing confusion as to how the health reforms are going to operate. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, appears unwilling to read from the script that Andrew Lansley left him. There are strong indications in his first few weeks that he does not recognise the wall that is being erected between the politicians and the NHS under the new regime, and is repeatedly pushing...