The Big Health Conversation

The Big Health Conversation  Public Engagement Event 

Would you like the opportunity to influence your local health services in Northamptonshire?

We would like to invite you to an event jointly hosted by NHS Nene Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Healthwatch Northamptonshire on 9 October, 6 – 8pm, Northampton Saints, Franklins Gardens, Northampton NN5 5BG.

NHS Nene CCG is the new clinically led organisation responsible for commissioning the majority of health services on behalf of local people. Healthwatch Northamptonshire is the new consumer champion for local people in relation to health and social care services. Both organisations have a shared goal to improve the health and well-being of people living in Northamptonshire. We are both committed to ensuring patients, services users, carers and the wider public influence the quality of health services in the county.

At the meeting, NHS Nene CCG will outline their emerging plans for April 2014 – March 2015 and ask your views. Healthwatch Northamptonshire will share feedback from their extensive community engagement programme taking place during September, during which they have been out and about asking people about their priorities for health and social care.

Your views are important to us. Both organisations are keen to hear how you feel we can best meet the challenges facing the local health system and ensure local people can continue to benefit from high quality, sustainable health services for themselves and their families. All feedback will be collated and directly used to help shape NHS Nene CCG’s and Healthwatch plans for the next 12 months.

We very much hope you will be able to join us for what will be an open and honest conversation with lots of opportunities for you to contribute via table top discussions.

Please can you confirm your attendance by completing the form at www.neneccg.nhs.uk/bigconversation or phoning us on 01604 651744 by Wednesday 2 October 2013.

We look forward to welcoming you on the 9 October 2013.

Investigation into care on Northampton General Hospital ward - Northampton Chronicle & Echo

Investigation into care on Northampton General Hospital ward - Northampton Chronicle & Echo 
An investigation has been launched to improve the standard of care on a ward at Northampton General Hospital. During an inquest held in Northampton yesterday, the family of 77-year-old Peter Catling, of Brundall Close, Langlands, who died in the ...

Ivy League training for new NHS managers

Ivy League training for new NHS managers  Health secretary's £10m plan is hoped to attract industry leaders as super-managers are promised intensive business course at top UK and US universities

Top industry managers and high-flying doctors are to be lured into leadership positions in the health service under a fast-track "superheads" scheme that could include study at prestigious universities such as Harvard.

A £10m scheme due to be announced on Thursday the health secretary Jeremy Hunt aims to ape the success of a generation of headteachers who have helped to turn around failing schools. It will offer the "brightest and best" candidates a 10-month crash course in how to run hospital trusts and other important parts of the NHS.

The new super-managers will be provided with a two-month intensive business course at top UK and US universities as part of their training. Officials confirmed they were in talks with the US Ivy league Harvard University, whose business school has been identified as a potential training partner.

• Senior doctors parachuted into failing hospitals in bid to improve NHS leadership  Daily Telegraph
• Rescue plan for failing hospitals  BBC News

Patients are at the centre of new ward inspection regime

Patients are at the centre of new ward inspection regime  NHS England today hailed another step forward in its vision to put the voice of patients at the heart of the NHS.

Thousands of members of the public joined forces with NHS staff to lead over 4,600 assessments of a mix of NHS settings to shine a light on the things that matter most to patients – being treated in clean, safe environment, tasty nutritious food, and high standards of privacy and dignity.

The new Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) were introduced with the key purpose of ensuring patients are at the centre of all inspections of hospital environments, and today marks the first time that detailed data about inspection findings has been published nationally.

The results have today been published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre and show:

After Francis: making a difference

After Francis: making a difference
House of Commons Health Select Committee 

In this report the Committee gives its view on the principal recommendations of the report of the public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust undertaken by Robert Francis QC.

• Report
• House of Commons Health Select Committee - news
• Compassion is not the answer to failings in the NHS  Guardian
• Making a difference after Francis  RCN
• After Francis: safety, safety culture and next steps  Health Foundation
• NHS Confederation and NHS Employers responds to the Health Select Committee Report "After Francis"

Home care fees rise by up to 160pc as rationing takes hold

Home care fees rise by up to 160pc as rationing takes hold  Elderly and disabled people who need care in their own homes have been hit with rises of up to 160 per cent in their bills in just five years, new research shows. Daily Telegraph

Minister orders review of guidelines for health workers wearing full-face veils

Minister orders review of guidelines for health workers wearing full-face veils  Dan Poulter also asks regulators to devise new uniform rules to ensure patients always have 'appropriate face-to-face contact'

A review is being launched into health service guidelines on full-face veils to ensure that patients always have "appropriate face-to-face contact", it has emerged.

Health minister Dan Poulter claims face coverings can be a barrier to good communication between healthcare professionals and patients.

He has ordered a review of current advice and asked regulators to devise new uniform rules.

"I am proud of the rich ethnic diversity of our healthcare workforce and support appropriate religious and cultural freedoms, but a vital part of good patient care is effective verbal and non-verbal communication," Poulter told the Daily Telegraph.

"Being unable to see a healthcare professional's face can be a barrier to good and empathetic communication with patients and their families.

"That is why I am writing to all healthcare regulators to ask them to look into this matter and to review their professional regulations, to ensure that there is always appropriate face-to-face contact between healthcare professionals and their patients."

A ban on staff wearing the full-face veil when dealing with patients has already been introduced at 17 NHS hospitals, according to the newspaper.

The home secretary, Theresa May, insisted it is for women to make a choice about what clothes they wear, including veils, but said there will be some circumstances when it will be necessary to ask for them to be removed.

Earlier this week a judge ruled that a Muslim woman would be allowed to stand trial while wearing a full-face veil but must remove it while giving evidence.

The ruling followed calls by Home Office minister Jeremy Browne for a national debate on whether the state should step in to prevent young women having the veil imposed upon them.  Guardian

The dismantled National Programme for IT in the NHS

The dismantled National Programme for IT in the NHS 
House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts 

This report finds that although the National Programme for IT in the NHS has been dismantled, it in effect remains in place with separate component programmes which continue to incur costs, although the full costs are not yet known. It concludes that unless the Department of Health acts on the lessons from the National Programme it is unlikely to deliver the new vision of a paperless NHS by 2018.

• Report
• House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts - news

MPs call for more transparent clinical trials

MPs call for more transparent clinical trials  "Drug companies and medical researchers are putting patients' lives in danger by failing to publish unfavourable results from clinical trials, MPs have warned," The Guardian reports.

The news follows the recent publication of a report (PDF, 2.3Mb) by the influential House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which called for greater transparency in clinical trials and the data they produce.

• Patients should have right to high risk trials  OnMedica News

Community mental health care services need to improve

Community mental health care services need to improve  A national survey of people who received community mental health services in 58 NHS trusts shows that services need to improve.  NHS Networks

Highly Specialised Technologies

Highly Specialised Technologies  Our recommendations on when and how a technology should be commissioned for use in the NHS in England. The programme will develop guidance on a small number of medicines aimed at treating patients with very rare diseases and very complex healthcare needs.  NICE