Round-up of Northampton General Hospital's Best Possible Care Award winners 2017

Round-up of Northampton General Hospital's Best Possible Care Award winners 2017 Northampton General Hospital’s staff are the most caring and dedicated around and their annual awards ceremony gives bosses the chance to show how much they are appreciated.

Here are a selection of winners as part of our own thank you.Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Initiating improvement: the impact of the Care Quality Commission’s approach to inspection

Initiating improvement: the impact of the Care Quality Commission’s approach to inspection I wouldn’t go as far as to say the National Audit Office’s (NAO) report on the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) performance was glowing. But I would say that it was considerably less negative than previous reviews. CQC has now inspected all NHS hospitals, general practices and adult social care providers in England. The inspections are reportedly more intelligence-driven than in the past. The King's Fund

Stoptober 2016 campaign evaluation

Stoptober 2016 campaign evaluation Stoptober is a major annual event to encourage smokers to quit for 28 days in October - with the aim of stopping smoking permanently.

This document measures the impact of Stoptober in 2016, its fifth year of operation. Public Health England

Is this the end of the NHS's internal market?

Is this the end of the NHS's internal market? Three decades of market-based reforms are being rethought.

The project in Millom and its surrounding area of Morecambe Bay is one of 50 experimental “vanguard” sites set up by the NHS in England to piece together this fragmented system, which is increasingly struggling to cope with growing numbers of elderly people with multiple chronic conditions. Although the scope of each vanguard varies, all aim to break down silos by combining budgets and having staff from different parts of the health service work more closely together. Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, wants these sites to be models for the rest of the service. The Economist

Five new medicines to be fast-tracked annually to NHS patients

Five new medicines to be fast-tracked annually to NHS patients The government has announced a plan to speed up the time it takes for new, life-changing medicines to reach patients.

From April 2018, around five drugs or devices will be selected by a panel of experts for fast-tracking each year.

This could mean they are available up to four years earlier than normal, ministers said.

The pharmaceutical industry and charities welcomed the news, saying it was a step in the right direction.

The former head of drug company GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Andrew Witty, will lead the panel deciding on which products should be selected.

Time will be saved by reducing the time taken for new breakthrough products to get through the NHS's appraisal and approval processes. BBC News

See also:

• New 'fast track' drug plan will speed NHS access by up to four years The Daily Telegraph

Overnight carer back pay scheme 'unaffordable'

Overnight carer back pay scheme 'unaffordable' Care providers have dismissed a government scheme to tackle a problem over back pay for overnight shift staff, as a "suicide note".

The charity Mencap said the government was sacrificing the wellbeing of the most vulnerable in society and putting the jobs of low-paid staff at risk.

Ministers said the scheme had been designed to help ensure workers were paid what they were owed.

But charities say the bill for six years of extra pay is unaffordable. BBC News

Hundreds of trainee GPs facing hardship as outsourcing firm fails to pay

Hundreds of trainee GPs facing hardship as outsourcing firm fails to pay Exclusive: Payment delays by Capita leave some trainees unable to cover mortgages and forced to ask for emergency funds

Hundreds of trainee GPs have not received their salaries from the outsourcing company responsible for paying them, forcing some to turn to charities for emergency funds.

Some GPs have been unable to cover their mortgages because of the delays by Capita, which holds a contract to administer training grants for GPs through a body called Primary Care Services England. Continue reading... The Guardian

Patients waiting at least an hour in ambulances double in two years

Patients waiting at least an hour in ambulances double in two years Labour says figures showing delays in transferring patients into A&Es are a sign the NHS has been ‘pushed to brink’

The number of patients waiting an hour or more to be transferred from an ambulance into an NHS A&E ward has doubled in England over the past two years.

There were 111,524 people who waited at least 60 minutes in an ambulance in 2016-17, up from 51,115 in 2014-15, prompting fears about patient safety. The increase was even more pronounced in some parts of the country, with figures from South East Coast ambulance service (Secamb) showing the number more than quadrupled over the same period, while in London it almost trebled. Continue reading... The Guardian

NHS: Teens more likely to take drugs than to smoke

NHS: Teens more likely to take drugs than to smoke Teenagers are now more likely to take drugs including legal highs and ‘hippy crack’ than they are to smoke, official figures show.

Almost a quarter of pupils aged 11 to 15 said they had used drugs compared to just 19 per cent who had smoked.

Drugs included legal highs, illegal substances such as cannabis, crack and cocaine as well as nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, which is also known as hippy crack.

One in ten had used drugs in the past month and boys were slightly more likely to have tried them than girls.

The figures also revealed that the percentage of 11- to 15-year-olds taking drugs has risen sharply in the last two years. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People in England - 2016 NHS Digital
• Drug use more likely than smoking among secondary school pupils The Guardian