Northampton nurse struck off after giving dementia patient a ‘good whack’

Northampton nurse struck off after giving dementia patient a ‘good whack’:

A NURSE who gave a dementia patient a double dose of medication then boasted about giving him ‘a good whack’ has been struck off from the profession.Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Patients are getting excellent or very good care in the NHS but more needs to be done

Patients are getting excellent or very good care in the NHS but more needs to be done:

The results published show that more patients are being treated with respect and dignity and felt they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment and in the amount of information given to them about their treatment. NHS Networks

Health and Social Care Bill explained

Health and Social Care Bill explained:

The Health and Social Care Bill is now in its Report Stage in the House of Lords. The Bill is a crucial part of the Government’s vision to modernise the NHS so that it is built around patients, led by health professionals and focused on delivering world-class healthcare outcomes.

The Department has published a series of factsheets on the Health and Social Care Bill to explain particular topics contained in the Bill, including its key themes.

The factsheets are:

Overview

Overview of the Bill

Case for change

Overview of health and care structures

Scrutiny and improvements

Key policy areas in the Bill

Clinically-led commissioning

Provider regulation to support innovative and efficient services

Greater voice for patients

New focus for public health

Greater accountabilty locally and nationally

Modernising health and care public bodies

Cross-cutting themes of the Bill

Improving quality of care

Tackling inequalities in healthcare

Promoting better integration of health and care services

Choice and competition

The role of the Secretary of State

Reconfiguration of services

Establishing new national bodies

Embedding research as a core function of the health service

Education and training

Further information

Earl Howe’s letter to peers on Government amendments

On 1 Febuary, Earl Howe wrote to all peers to explain the amendments that we were proposing to the Health and Social Bill. These respond to a range of improvements suggested and concerns raised during committee stage in the House of Lords.

See Earl Howe’s letter to all peers

Amendment briefing notes

The Department also recently published briefing notes on Government amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill, setting out more information about our proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill.

Ten reasons why we need a Bill to make these reforms work

Ten reasons why we need a Bill to make these reforms work:

Health Minister Simon Burns explains why the Health and Social Care Bill is needed to make the changes that are being proposed for the NHS.

Many people have said that we don’t need legislation to make the changes we’re proposing for the NHS. But we don’t believe we can deliver change on the scale we need without making changes to the law. Here are some of the reasons why.

1. If we want to reduce bureaucracy and management costs, then we need legislation. The Bill gets rid of two layers of management in primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. The reforms will save £4.5 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament, which will be reinvested in healthcare.

2. If we want to give doctors and nurses significantly more power than they have now to provide care for their patients, then we have to change the law. Of course, without a Bill, we can ask the managers who run primary care trusts and decide how NHS money is spent to involve doctors and nurses. But without the Bill, doctors and nurses will always run the risk of having their decisions second-guessed by the managers running these organisations. We know this because we’ve tried before to give health professionals a greater say in the decisions made by primary care trusts, and it simply didn’t work.

3. Most people agree that local authorities, because they’re also in charge of schools, town planning, transport and housing, should also be in charge of public health. But we can’t do this without changing the law. Without the Bill, we can’t transfer powers or money from the NHS to local authorities – they won’t be able to play their full role on public health.

4. Most people agree the health and wellbeing boards – which bring together local people and key local services – are a great idea. But without the Bill, they won’t have any power. They’ll be able to give advice about the health needs of the local population, but no one will be obliged to take any notice.

5. We need this to Bill prevent discrimination in favour of private health companies over the NHS – it’s the first piece of legislation to do this.

6. Most people agree that we should give more power to patients – that they should have more choice and be much more involved in decisions about their care. But it’s this Bill that makes that explicit in law. So if you have cancer, and you want a say in what treatment you have, wherever you live, whoever your GP is, your views and preferences have to be taken into account when deciding your care and treatment – no decision can be made about you without you.

7. For decades, governments have tried to reduce the health gap between rich and poor. But in many areas, the gap is getting wider. A man born in Blackpool will still die 11 years earlier than a man born in Kensington and Chelsea. The Bill puts in law for the first time a duty on the NHS and local government to tackle health inequality.

8. Many governments have tried unsuccessfully to integrate health and social care services. But in most parts of the country, it’s still not happening. The Bill places a duty on key organisations to integrate health and social care services.

9. Currently, patients do not have a very strong voice in the system. But through HealthWatch, they will have a hotline to the Care Quality Commission and the NHS Commissioning Board. If a group of people say there are serious problems at a particular hospital, but they’re being ignored by the local trust, through HealthWatch, they will be able to take their concerns directly to the Care Quality Commission.

10. As 52 NHS medical directors and chief executives have pointed out, without the Bill, many NHS trusts will have to shelve their plans for future improvements to patient care. The Bill changes the current arbitrary private patient cap that stifles the development of groundbreaking new treatments by the likes of Great Ormond Street and the Royal Marsden that NHS patients will benefit from.

Department of Health

Drop the Health Bill, says former CCG lead

Drop the Health Bill, says former CCG lead: A former clinical commissioning group (CCG) and LMC lead has called for the health secretary to drop the Health Bill. GP Online

Cameron to target booze culture ''scandal''

Cameron to target booze culture ''scandal'': The Prime Minister has said that he wants to tackle the problem which costs the NHS over £2.7bn a year Public Service

Death by indifference: 74 deaths and counting

Death by indifference: 74 deaths in people with a learning disability and counting:
This report found that although some positive steps have been taken in the NHS, many health professionals are still failing to provide adequate care to people with a learning disability. It highlights the deaths of 74 people with a learning disability in NHS care over the last ten years which could have been avoidable.

• Report
• Report summary
• Mencap - news

Guide to commissioning for maximum value

Guide to commissioning for maximum value:
This guide is aimed at commissioning teams responsible for public services, and is most relevant to those with responsibility for relational services, dealing with what value is and how it may be better understood and taken into account in decision making throughout the cycle of commissioning.

• Guidance
• The SROI Network - news

NHS Midlands launch real time monitoring

NHS Midlands launch real time monitoring: NHS trusts are set to be ranked by patient satisfaction with part of their funding depending on that performance.
The system will be introduced across a quarter of England’s hospitals in 2012-13 with the strategic health authority cluster, NHS Midlands and East, will requiring all acute providers in its region to collect “real time” data on how likely their patients would be to recommend their hospitals to ... Healthcare Today

Commons debate looms as NHS reform petition hits 100000 landmark - Politics.co.uk

Commons debate looms as NHS reform petition hits 100000 landmark - Politics.co.uk:

The Guardian

Commons debate looms as NHS reform petition hits 100000 landmark Politics.co.uk Mental health services should not be the 'poor relation' in the NHS anymore, say charity. On the eve of the second reading of the much maligned Health and Social Care Bill a new poll by Unite the union has shown that over 90 per cent of people do not ... NHS in Chaos as Senior Staff Jump ShipIBTimes.co.uk all 221 news articles »

New forum to address need for NHS leadership

New forum to address need for NHS leadership:

A new policy forum launched by the NHS Confederation will create a new voice for the NHS and put dignity in care for older people higher up the agenda, says Niall Smith

A new style of leadership is needed in the NHS in order to deliver change and meet the scale of the challenge of reform. If the NHS wants to shape policy, it has to be more assertive now than it has been in the past.

With all this in mind, the NHS Confederation has launched a new policy forum made up of NHS leaders from across the system. The aim is to put its members at the centre of our work and provide a strong platform for NHS leaders to set the agenda. The forum will be led by our chair, Sir Keith Pearson, and it has already set out some of the areas that it wants us to work on.

Two of these, the scale of the funding challenge the NHS faces and the need to tackle dignity in care are already key strands of our work.

We have also set up a commission with the Local Government Association and Age UK to look at improving dignity in care for older people. Its report and recommendations will be published in draft later this month. We believe it is absolutely vital for the NHS to own this problem, take responsibility for improving dignity and come up with solutions that will work on the ground. Services will need to change radically.

We will also be advocating for policy makers to see reform as a 10 or 15-year process, not one that lasts an electoral cycle. Most other countries see it this way and we should too. It is the only way we will address the long-term challenges the health service faces.

The confederation already has an excellent reputation of policy analysis and thought leadership that we can build on and the idea is to make the "what" and "why" of policy development much more closely linked to the "how" of implementation.

We also want to benefit from advice from other partner organisations and the forum will work with others in local government and clinical and patient groups. Each member of the policy forum is nominated by a network or partner that speaks for a particular part of the health or social care system, such as the Foundation Trust Network and NHS Alliance.

The end result should be a more assertive confederation that its members genuinely recognise as their own. We are not a managers trade union but the voice of the NHS and we can speak from a position of real authority based on the knowledge and experience of NHS leaders.

Health services are facing at least a decade of funding austerity, starting with a £20bn efficiency challenge no health service has met before and the largest ever reorganisation in NHS history. We will have to change the way services are delivered in order to meet this challenge.

We will also have to address significant problems, highlighted in a number of watershed reports, concerning the basics of care and maintaining the dignity of patients.

A new style of leadership will be needed in the NHS to deliver change and meet these challenges. With more integrated working across organisations reflecting new ways of delivering services we will need less command and control and more local empowerment.

The forum puts members at the heart of the NHS Confederation so that our membership determines what we say and do, ensuring that our policy and influencing work is grounded in the views and opinions of NHS organisations.

Guardian Professional.

Health minister: binge drinking costs NHS £2.7bn a year

Health minister: binge drinking costs NHS £2.7bn a year: Anne Milton, the health minister, calls for a change to the drunken behaviour that "wrecks lives" and costs the NHS millions. The Daily Telegraph

Whitehall health staff paid via 'limited companies'

Whitehall health staff paid via 'limited companies': Department of Health officials have salaries paid to limited companies enabling them to reduce tax bill, it has emerged. The Daily Telegraph

Patients see a succession of doctors in hospital it has been warned

Patients see a succession of doctors in hospital it has been warned: One in four medical consultants believe patient care is being put at risk because they see a succession of different staff in hospital due to cuts in working hours. The Daily Telegraph

Hundreds of NHS patients are being denied chance of IVF

Hundreds of NHS patients are being denied chance of IVF:
Britain's fertility regulator has run up a surplus of more than £3m from charges imposed on the clinics it licenses, enough to provide 1,000 free cycles of IVF treatment on the NHS. The Independent

Online sexual health training now available to the public

Online sexual health training now available to the public: An online training resource, addressing sexual health issues, has been made available to the public by the Royal College of Nursing. Royal College of Nursing