FabStuff Podcast

In their latest podcast Niall and Roy have a fascinating exchange with Professor Lord Darzi, the eminent surgeon and former government minister whose independent investigation earlier this year laid bare an NHS that is failing at so many levels and which has lost public confidence. In the podcast, Ara Darzi reveals how shocked he was to find that staffing was not the issue, but that instead there had been a serious crash in productivity. Nor was funding the issue. He says money h...

In this episode of their Podcast In the Loop Niall and Roy step on to new ground in a fascinating discussion with Professor Tas Qureshi. a General and Gastro-intestinal Surgeon at Poole Hospital in Dorset. But Tas has another role – he has made a number of trips to Gaza as a volunteer, giving up his free time to support his fellow surgeons there as they deal with the most horrifying of trauma injuries, as well as helping to train staff in the treatment of cancer. This is a personal st...

In their latest podcast Niall and Roy invite Dr Penny Dash, the new chair of NHS England, to join them. Within weeks of her appointment the secretary of state announced that NHS England was for the chop and that he would subject the NHS to a major reorganisation. But Penny is unphased and says the current system is riddled with complexity and duplication and could not have survived, although she admits with the Department running everything we could well be back to the old challenges of too m...

In this latest podcast Niall and Roy talk to Dr Bill Kirkup CBE, who has headed some of the major enquiries into failing NHS services, including paediatric cardiac surgery in Oxford. Liverpool Community Services, and the high-profile investigations into maternity services at Morecambe Bay and East Kent Hospitals. In a frank discussion, Bill reveals that he does not believe enquiries have made things better or stopped the pattern of failure. He says that since his investigation into Morecambe...

In their latest podcast Niall Dickson and Roy Lilley are joined by former health secretary, foreign secretary, and chancellor, Sir Jeremy Hunt. In a fascinating insight, reflecting on his years in power, Sir Jeremy reveals how terrified he was to find himself responsible for the NHS knowing nothing much beyond his own constituency issues. Over time he says he learned how to work the system to secure more resources for the NHS from the Treasury. He says being Foreign Secr...

In this podcast on social care reform with Niall Dickson and Roy Lilley, Sir Andrew Dilnot, the former Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies pulls no punches when it comes to the missed opportunities of successive governments. As the author of the definitive 2014 report on social care reform, he shows his frustration and dismay at this government’s failure to tackle a crisis that is now leaving millions of vulnerable older people without the support they need, and at the sa...

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What happens when a leading banker groomed in the disciplines and attitudes of the private sector finds himself in charge of the NHS in England? Surely he will be highly sceptical at least, suspicious and critical at best? But no - the story of Richard Meddings the outgoing NHS England Chair is of a Damascene conversion. In this podcast with Niall Dickson and Roy Lilley, Richard reveals himself as an arch defender of the NHS at every level including the achievements of th...