Tuesday 14 February 2012

The Chron looks at how a state-of-the-art simulation suite is helping our ... - Northampton Chronicle & Echo

The Chron looks at how a state-of-the-art simulation suite is helping our ... - Northampton Chronicle & Echo:

Northampton Chronicle & Echo
The Chron looks at how a state-of-the-art simulation suite is helping our ...
Northampton Chronicle & Echo
Immediately a Northampton General Hospital anaesthetist sets about removing them, as well as her hair. And Betty becomes Dave. Fortunately Chron photographers and NGH staff are not normally as rude as this with patients but Betty – or Dave – is no ...

Safeguarding and quality in commissioning care homes

Safeguarding and quality in commissioning care homes:

The government has identified six guiding principles on safeguarding which seek to increase the protection for those most at risk in society. NHS Networks

New NHS Pension Scheme calculators published

New NHS Pension Scheme calculators published:

Proposals for a new scheme from April 2015


Calculators have been developed to enable members of the NHS Pension Scheme to estimate their future benefits and see any changes to their current scheme benefits, under the Government’s proposed new scheme. There are separate calculators for Agenda for Change staff and medical and dental staff in the hospital and community health services.


Entering personal, career and salary details into the appropriate calculator will provide estimates of the following information:



  • the amount of pension entitlement a member would have received at their current normal pension age (NPA) under the existing scheme to which they belong, at current prices


  • how much longer it will take a member to accrue the same benefits under the proposed new scheme


  • the amount of pension entitlement a member will have if they retired at the new scheme’s NPA.


They also provide members with the opportunity to estimate the amount of pension entitlement they will be entitled to, at a retirement date they specify.


These calculators are based on the NHS Pension scheme specific discussions and have been developed, shared and discussed with the NHS trade unions.


See calculator for Agenda for Change staff


See calculator for medical and dental staff in the hospital and community health services


Department of Health

Keeping patients in work not part of GP role, experts warn

Keeping patients in work not part of GP role, experts warn: Plans to require doctors to push patients to stay in work or return to work are unrealistic and not part of their core role, medico-legal experts have warned. GP Online

Tackling list inflation

Tackling list inflation:
This paper offers a how to guide to tackling list inflation or list cleansing, as it is sometimes known. It describes the work needed to ensure that GP patient lists are accurate, including identifying and removing inappropriate patient records.

New debate needed on organ donation

New debate needed on organ donation: The British Medical Association has released a report which calls for a new discussion about the subject of organ donation.Dr Vivienne Nathanson, one of the report's authors, said people should consider if fresh ways of getting people to donate organs should be considered or if the current problem of patients dying on the waiting list for donor organs should perpetuate. Healthcare Today

Profiting from fear: a management consultant's view of the NHS - Open Democracy

Profiting from fear: a management consultant's view of the NHS - Open Democracy:

The Guardian
Profiting from fear: a management consultant's view of the NHS
Open Democracy
He forecasts a worrying future in which consultants play a central role as the NHS prepares itself for radical reforms. Rapid policy change often leads to pressure, confusion and uncertainty. And wherever you find management under pressure and ...
Live discussion: long-term conditions and mental healthThe Guardian

all 5 news articles »

NHS reforms: government concedes raft of fresh amendments

NHS reforms: government concedes raft of fresh amendments:

David Cameron and Nick Clegg come out in support of embattled health secretary Andrew Lansley


The government has conceded a fresh raft of amendments to its NHS reforms despite the prime minister and his Lib Dem deputy coming out to defend the embattled health secretary, Andrew Lansley.


Downing Street launched an offensive, dismissing a call by the Lib Dem deputy party leader, Simon Hughes, for Lansley to leave office. The prime minister's spokesman said: "It's not an issue for Simon Hughes. The government is fully behind the health bill."


Hours later Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, told the BBC: "Andrew Lansley is the architect of the NHS bill. He cares passionately about the NHS. He's the right man for the job and he must see it through."


Despite such support the government made, according to Labour, "major concessions" on the health bill concerning the training of doctors. Ministers accepted an amendment which will force private providers of NHS services to give staff certain levels of training and education to head off fears that they could offer cheaper services by having less qualified workers.


The bill has suffered two defeats in the House of Lords and in the light of such reversals it appears that ministers are picking their fights more carefully.


In the Lords, the government was also questioned about the role of the management consultancy firm McKinsey in helping to frame the bill following a report in the Mail on Sunday claiming that senior staff at the NHS body Monitor, whose role under the plans would include regulating healthcare contracts, had been "lavishly" entertained at the company's expense.


Labour's Lady Royall said the company seemed "to be setting the rules in the health bill and benefiting from the outcome".


Earl Howe responded saying that "I know of no such impropriety. There are very strict rules … on declaring hospitality. If I discover any substance I will write and place a copy in the library. I very much doubt that I will find any substance."


He added that between 2006 and 2010 McKinsey got £30m in work from the Labour government.


Lansley has also broken his silence over his reforms, penning an article for Health Service Journal in which he says competition in the NHS will bring in innovation and compares health to the changing face of music. "After all, in any other sector, it is the thousands of individual decisions to adopt a new technology – from, say, cassettes to compact discs to mp3 players – which combine to sweep away less effective services."


Andy Burnham, Labour's shadow health secretary, said the article revealed Lansley's "real agenda for the NHS – to turn it from a national, collaborative health service into a competitive, market-based system." The Guardian

Progressive blindness cases to rise by a third in a decade

Progressive blindness cases to rise by a third in a decade:

The number of people suffering from progressive blindness is set to rise by a third in the space of a decade, amid growing concern that the NHS has significantly underestimated the prevalence of the condition, new research warns. The Independent