Parents worried as specialist Northampton respite care centre faces uncertain future

Parents worried as specialist Northampton respite care centre faces uncertain future The parents who use a specialist Northampton respite care centre for children are worried the service may come to an end after a 32 per cent reduction in funding.

The contract, which ends in July, to run the John Greenwood Shipman Centre was put up for tender in March and parents were told by Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) that it didn't see a way it could safely look after the children within the restructured financial model.

Northamptonshire County Council has advised it will continue to provide £2.1m per year along with co-funders Nene and Corby Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), whose share of funding has reduced in 2018/19. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Target date of 2022 for new KGH urgent care hub

Target date of 2022 for new KGH urgent care hub Health bosses hope a new urgent care hub at Kettering General Hospital will be up and running in four years.

Plans for the hub, which would combine A&E with primary care such as GP services at the hospital’s Rothwell Road site, were first announced in 2015.

Documents from a KGH board of directors meeting on Friday (April 6) say an outline business case was submitted to NHS Improvement (NHSI) earlier this year with a target opening date of April 2022.

The case for the hub is in response to growing demand for emergency care services at the hospital. Northamptonshire Telegraph

See also:

• Work begins on KGH’s £450,000 A&E refurb Northamptonshire Telegraph

The perpetual winter’s tale

The perpetual winter’s tale While the weather may be taking a turn for the better ­– after a long winter with a particularly cold February and March – in the NHS patients and staff seem to be stuck in the grip of a perpetual winter.

Despite the end of winter daily national sitrep reporting, claims from NHS England, NHS Improvement and the government that ‘the year-on-year decline seems to have been halted' and the media moving on to new headlines, in reality, for staff on the front line and patients, the current situation looks no better than it did in the depths of winter. The King's Fund

Most independent acute hospitals are providing good care but stronger governance needed to improve patient safety

Most independent acute hospitals are providing good care but stronger governance needed to improve patient safety The CQC has published its analysis of the quality and safety of care provided by independent acute hospitals across England.

CQC has inspected and rated over 200 independent hospitals in England, at an overall level, for their core services and for how ‘safe’, ‘caring’, ‘effective’, ‘responsive to people’s needs’ and ‘well led’ they are.

In its national report, CQC has revealed that the majority of independent acute hospitals are providing high quality care for their patients. As of 2 January 2018, 62% were rated as good and 8% were rated as outstanding. Care Quality Commission 

See also:

• The state of care in independent acute hospitals Care Quality Commission
• Private hospitals warned over surgeons BBC News

Accounting for the quality of NHS output

Accounting for the quality of NHS output This review provides the conceptual framework needed to select potentially appropriate characteristics of healthcare outputs to be included in a measure of NHS output. To this end the research team has evaluated three published sets of criteria developed by national bodies responsible for assessing healthcare system performance before seeking the opinions of UK experts on quality. From this process a criteria set was established, which was subsequently used to assess whether two separate set of quality indicators currently collected and reported for the English NHS, namely the NHS Outcomes Framework indicators and NHS Thermometer indicators, meet the identified criteria. Centre for Health Economics

The changing nature of regulation in the NHS

The changing nature of regulation in the NHS This report highlights the findings of NHS Providers’ fourth regulation survey. It details NHS trusts and foundation trusts’ experiences of regulation over the preceding twelve months and their views on the future of regulation. The survey findings show that trusts are concerned that the regulatory framework is not keeping pace with the developments taking place on the ground. They highlighted that the oversight of sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) and integrated care systems (ICSs) risks becoming an extra layer of performance management. Respondents also questioned whether STPs and ICSs can take on oversight and assurance roles for local systems without a statutory footing. NHS Providers

Invisible no longer: women and HIV

Invisible no longer: women and HIV This is the report of a one-year study aiming to explore the needs and experiences of women affected by HIV. The project was co-produced with women living with and affected by HIV and draws on their experiences to understand what HIV means for women in the UK. It looked at existing evidence and generated new data to provide an overview of the situation for women in the UK living with or vulnerable to acquiring HIV. Terrence Higgins Trust

The town with a plan to end loneliness

The town with a plan to end loneliness One town in the UK has come together to help lonely people. And it seems to be working. BBC News

Record number of organ donors in 2017

Record number of organ donors in 2017 A record number of people donated organs in the UK last year, with the highest increase in 28 years.

There were 1,575 donors, an 11% increase on the previous year.

Ben Glean from Grimsby, who died aged 18, was one of those donors. He suffered a cardiac arrest from undiagnosed type 1 diabetes.

His mum Karen said: "I knew what Ben wanted because we'd had the conversation, which made it easier for me.

"In my darkest time there was a light to be shone for someone else."

He'd told his mum he was in support of donation but had not yet got around to joining the NHS Organ Donor Register.

His kidneys were transplanted into two men in their 30s and his liver into a man in his 50s. His corneas were also used for two sight-saving transplants. BBC News

Exclusive: Urgent cancer scans blocked for nearly half of GPs

Exclusive: Urgent cancer scans blocked for nearly half of GPs Nearly half of GPs have had a referral on the two-week cancer pathway bounced back or downgraded to non-urgent over the past year, GPonline can reveal - often for patients later found to have cancer.

See also:

• Half of GPs have had urgent cancer referrals blocked by NHS managers The Daily Mail
• Two charts that highlight problems for GPs diagnosing cancer GPonline 
• GPs face 'too many barriers' to diagnostic tests for cancer GPonline 

GP trainee faces deportation as BMA slams 'incomprehensible' Home Office approach

GP trainee faces deportation as BMA slams 'incomprehensible' Home Office approach A doctor who has lived in the UK for a decade faces deportation just five months before completing his GP training, in a decision the BMA has condemned as 'utterly incomprehensible'.

The Home Office is appealing against a decision by an immigration judge who ruled that Dr Luke Ong should be allowed to stay in the UK. Dr Ong is from Singapore but has been in the UK legally throughout his university education and medical training. GPOnline

See also:

• BMA responds to case of GP trainee facing deportation BMA
• 'Bureaucracy getting in the way of common sense' - RCGP verdict on GP trainee facing deportation Royal College of General Practitioners

BMA: GPs 'likely' responsible for care of psychiatric inpatients in their area

BMA: GPs 'likely' responsible for care of psychiatric inpatients in their area GPs are 'likely' to have to provide primary care services for inpatients resident at psychiatric and other specialty institutions within their practice boundary, the BMA has said.

The new guidance - published after the BMA took legal advice on the issue - concerns patients residing in care homes, as well as single specialty and psychiatric institutions, following an increase in member enquiries about who is responsible for their primary care needs.

The guidance also says GPs should make decisions on home visits of these patients on a 'case-by-case basis'.

But other GP leaders argue that practices are neither skilled nor resourced for this type of work, with hospitals urged to take on more responsibility. Pulse

NHS appoints humanist to lead chaplaincy team

NHS appoints humanist to lead chaplaincy team Lindsay van Dijk will help meet demand for non-religious pastoral care in Buckinghamshire

A humanist has been appointed to lead a team of NHS chaplains, in a move that reflects growing demand for emotional and spiritual support from people who do not identify with any organised religion.

Lindsay van Dijk will lead three Christian chaplains and a team of 24 volunteers, including a Catholic nun, a Buddhist and a Bahá’í, at the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust. The world-renowned spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville hospital is part of the trust. Continue reading... The Guardian

See also:

• The NHS’s new humanist chaplain is a welcome sign of our shifting spirituality The Guardian
• Jane Flint: ‘Having an atheist chaplain is about patient choice’ The Guardian

NHS returns to china cups and saucers in war on disposable cups

NHS returns to china cups and saucers in war on disposable cups Hospitals are bringing back china crockery as an investigation reveals the NHS has used more than 600 million disposable cups in the last five years.

The findings follow warnings from the chief medical officer that the NHS is a “significant polluter” creating “huge amounts” of waste that is threatening the environment.

Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests show that NHS trusts in England have purchased 609,830,335 disposable cups since 2013.

One London trust, Guy's and St Thomas', purchased almost 30 million cups over the period. The Daily Telegraph

Unexplained weight loss ‘should be urgently investigated’ as research finds it is the key symptom of cancer

Unexplained weight loss ‘should be urgently investigated’ as research finds it is the key symptom of cancer Weight loss in patients over the age of 60 should be urgently investigated, with one in seven cases among men likely to mean cancer, a major study has found.

The research by Oxford University found that losing weight is the key symptom of the disease, linked to at least 10 types of cancer.

Experts called on GPs to refer patients with unexplained weight loss for urgent tests, in a bid to speed up diagnosis.

Britain’s survival rates are lagging behind may comparative countries, with the UK falling in the bottom half of international league tables for seven major forms of the disease.

Unexplained weight loss has long been associated with cancer. The Daily Telegraph