Clinical commissioning groups: Does size matter?

Clinical commissioning groups: Does size matter?: Paul Zollinger-Read considers whether it's the size of clinical commissioning groups that counts, or their ability to collaborate. (Blog, 3 Jan 2012) Kings Fund

Common and complex: commissioning effective dementia services in the new world

Common and complex: commissioning effective dementia services in the new world:

It outlines recommendations for health and wellbeing boards and the role that they have to play in improving dementia care. NHS Networks

VIDEO: Santorum: 'NHS devastated Britain'

VIDEO: Santorum: 'NHS devastated Britain': Newsnight's Peter Marshall challenges Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on what he meant when he said that healthcare policies had brought down the British Empire. BBC News

'Strong case' for assisted dying

'Strong case' for assisted dying: There is a "strong case" for allowing assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill in England and Wales, a group of experts says. BBC News

Extra funding for PCTs to help discharge patients from hospital

Extra funding for PCTs to help discharge patients from hospital: Source: Department of Health (DH)

Area: News

The Department of Health has announced the availability of an additional £150m fund to be allocated to Primary Care Trusts in England, for immediate transfer to local authorities for investment in social care services which also benefit the health system.

This additional investment is aimed to reduce the pressure on health services by discharging patients from hospital more quickly and provide effective ongoing support for people in their own homes.

An additional £20 million will be allocated to the Disabled Facilities Grant for 2011/12, to help more people with a disability to access the aids and adaptations they require to live independently at home, saving them from an unnecessary stay in hospital or going into residential care.

Integration should be given same priority as reducing waiting times, says report

Integration should be given same priority as reducing waiting times, says report: Integration should be given the same priority over the next decade as reducing waiting times was given over the past 10 years, the King's Fund and Nuffield Trust have recommended. GP Online

Elderly care reforms could get cross-party agreement, says Andrew Dilnot

Elderly care reforms could get cross-party agreement, says Andrew Dilnot: Andrew Dilnot, the architect of proposed reforms to long-term elderly care, said there is a "real chance" of a cross-party agreement between the Coalition and Labour on improving the system. The Telegraph

Implementing the Equality Act 2010: interim guidance for the NHS

Implementing the Equality Act 2010: interim guidance for the NHS:

The Equality Act includes specific deadlines that all public bodies are legally required to meet. NHS Employers has published interim guidance to support NHS organisations with this. The guidance signposts the best advice and answers the most popular questions asked in relation to employer responsibilities.

• Guidance



• NHS Employers - news

Joint plan to foster a healthy and vibrant healthcare IT market

Joint plan to foster a healthy and vibrant healthcare IT market: The draft plan focuses on improving the perception of healthcare IT. Connecting for Health

Using resources efficiently

Using resources efficiently: NICE has identified recommendations that could help the NHS save millions of pounds, whilst maintaining or improving the quality of care.

David Cameron orders merging of health and social care

David Cameron orders merging of health and social care:

Integration of services will save money says prime minister as NHS warns changes will lead to hospital closures

David Cameron has ordered health and social care services to be brought together in order to benefit patients in a move which government advisers are calling the NHS's most urgent overhaul.

At the moment, health and social care – the help given mainly to old or disabled patients to help them continue to live at home rather than in hospital or nursing homes – are different systems in England. NHS medical treatment and domiciliary support, which is provided mainly by local councils, are usually not joined-up.

But Cameron has told the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to drive through changes that health policy experts claim will make life more convenient for patients, improve care and save the NHS money.

The changes will lead to some hospitals closing, warned the pro-integration NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals and other major NHS employers.

The prime minister has been persuaded by senior doctors and Downing Street health advisers that, without integration, the NHS could become unsustainable due to rises in the number of patients with long-term health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and breathing problems.

The first move towards creating joined-up services is likely to see Lansley tell the NHS that it has to give integration the same priority that keeping waiting lists under control has had for the last decade.

That new target is the key recommendation of a new report on integrating care by the King's Fund and Nuffield Trust health thinktanks, whose chief executives both advise Downing Street.

They want the introduction of "a clear, ambitious and measurable goal to improve the experience of patients and service users, and to be delivered by a defined date.

This goal would serve a similar purpose to the aim of delivering a maximum waiting time of 18 weeks for patients receiving hospital care."

The new duty would oblige providers of medical care to start working closely with social care providers in order to streamline the care patients receive, ensure they have to deal with fewer organisations and departments and deliver more care in community settings rather than hospitals.

Cameron is also keen on the other suggestions in the report, according to well-placed NHS sources. They include new guarantees that patients will receive an agreed care plan and a named case manager responsible for co-ordinating care for all their needs, and changes to the existing "tariff" system – where hospitals are paid for providing episodes of care – to favour the planning and delivery of ongoing programmes of joined-up care for people with complex health and welfare needs.

The confederation's deputy policy director, Jo Webber, said: "Integrating care will improve services, particularly for people who are frail and those with long term conditions. But it will also involve making some really difficult decisions as hospital activity is reduced and moved into the community."

"Integration will take a long time to bed down and start improving the quality of care patients receive. Integration will produce more sustainable models of care in the long term but many local initiatives could mean new services being run in tandem while old ones are shut, which could be more expensive in the short term."

In addition, "fundamental reform of social care" – which the charity Age UK said was "an absolute disaster" – was vital, otherwise integration would not work, Webber said. Achieveing joined-up services "will require significant political courage and leadership."

Health and social care is already integrated in Northern Ireland and a few parts of England, such as Torbay in Devon, and patients generally report greater happiness with their care where it exists.

Cameron made integration one of his five "personal NHS guarantees" last year.

The care services minister Paul Burstow said: "Integrated care should be the norm. That's why we asked the NHS Future Forum to specifically work on the issue. Our ambition for the NHS and social care is a simple one – to achieve better results for people and carers. So our priority is to orientate the whole system around patients, service users and carers through our Outcomes Framework."

Andy Burnham MP, the shadow health secretary, backed the report and said it was further proof that the government should drop its health and social care bill, which would set back the cause of integration by 10 years. The Guardian

Risk from breast implants cannot be judged

Risk from breast implants cannot be judged:

The safety of breast implants inserted into tens of thousands of British women is impossible to judge, the body responsible for regulating them has admitted, because an accurate record of the number of procedures has not been kept. The Independent

RCN ‘appalled’ at attacks on lone working nursing staff

RCN ‘appalled’ at attacks on lone working nursing staff: The Royal College of Nursing has said that assaults on nursing staff are completely unacceptable, as new survey findings show that over 60 per cent of nurses working in the community have been subjected to abuse in the past two years.