Thursday 10 May 2018

The 10-year strategy for the health and care workforce

The 10-year strategy for the health and care workforce Though this may be a generalisation, until recently I am sure most people working in health and social care would have agreed that their biggest challenge was money, given the impact of sustained austerity on public services in general and on the NHS and social care in particular. However, by 2017, for many people workforce issues have caught up with – and sometimes overtaken – financial pressures as the key challenge facing both services. Most pressing are the staff shortages and high turnover now experienced in many services (nursing, general practice and much of social care to name but three) although long-term questions of self-sufficiency in workforce and skill-mix are also important, particularly as we look further into the future, post-Brexit. The King's Fund

Credible plan to sustain underfunded care sector needed this year

Credible plan to sustain underfunded care sector needed this year This report argues that the adult social care sector is underfunded, with the care workforce suffering from low pay, low esteem and high turnover of staff. Public Accounts Select Committee

Unwell, unsafe, and unfed – 4,000 people needing care reveal a shocking picture of neglect in our care system

Unwell, unsafe, and unfed – 4,000 people needing care reveal a shocking picture of neglect in our care system A survey by the Care and Support Alliance (CSA), of nearly 4,000 people who need care or look after someone who does reveals the damning reality of a care system that is visibly failing and unfit for purpose. Those relying on care revealed their experiences of poor care – in the worst cases amounting to neglect – at the hands of a care system that is meant to provide a safety net for them but which often lacks the resources to do so.

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Integrating Mental Health And Social Care: Does It Work In Practice?

Integrating Mental Health And Social Care: Does It Work In Practice? This briefing looks at the integration of mental health and social care, the benefits behind this and the challenges faced on the ground. It argues that the current pressures on both the health and care systems can conceal the day-to-day challenges of living with mental health problems, the distress of families and friends, and the struggle to stay well in their community. Centre for Mental Health

Fentanyl: preparing for a future threat

Fentanyl: preparing for a future threat Local areas are being advised to use these resources when preparing their response to incidents caused by fentanyl or other potent opioids. The plan should enable local partners to rapidly understand the scale of the threat and assess the risk, communicate the threat and take actions to mitigate the threat. The accompanying spreadsheet shows how much naloxone should be provided in local areas based on different scenarios and explains how the modelling was calculated. Public Health England

Going the distance: exercise professionals in the wider public health workforce

Going the distance: exercise professionals in the wider public health workforce This report, written with ukactive, explores how fitness professionals can play an enhanced role in supporting the public’s health. It calls for GP drop-in and smoking cessation services inside gyms and leisure centres, to help ease pressure on local health facilities and improve access to health improvement services. Royal Society for Public Health

Visa clampdown 'hits cancer patients'

Visa clampdown 'hits cancer patients' Cancer patients are being put at risk by immigration rules, say specialist doctors.

NHS hospital trusts are struggling to recruit genetic counsellors, who identify people at risk of hereditary cancer and other serious conditions.

Some hospitals rely on foreign workers, who now find it difficult to get visas as immigration rules have tightened.

The Home Office said priority was given to people working in occupations with shortages. BBC News

NHS trust £14m debt partly 'due to patient system failure'

NHS trust £14m debt partly 'due to patient system failure' The failure of a computerised patient record system lost an NHS trust £10m, according to its chief executive.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said the system failed to keep a record of "all activity taking place".

Because of this the trust was unable to bill the NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for work, including operations.

InterSystems, which provided the TrakCare system, declined to comment. BBC News

Norman Lamb: We cannot mental health slide down the agenda because of Brexit - iNews

Norman Lamb: We cannot mental health slide down the agenda because of Brexit When Theresa May took office promising to tackle society’s burning injustices, it was heartening that she singled out the lack of support available for people experiencing mental ill health.

One in four of us will be affected by a mental health problem in any given year, costing the economy an estimated £105 billion. But rather than being treated with the urgency and compassion that society would demand for a physical condition, mental illness has been scandalously hidden and neglected. iNews

NHS will no longer have to share immigrants' data with Home Office

NHS will no longer have to share immigrants' data with Home Office Exclusive: minister announces U-turn over key element in ‘hostile environment’ immigration policy

Ministers have suspended controversial arrangements under which the NHS shared patients’ details with the Home Office so it could trace people breaking immigration rules.

The government’s U-turn on a key element of its “hostile environment” approach to immigration came after MPs, doctors’ groups and health charities warned that the practice was scaring some patients from seeking NHS care for medical problems. Continue reading... The Guardian

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Private hospitals’ business model is archaic, unsafe and indefensible

Private hospitals’ business model is archaic, unsafe and indefensible With a growing share of NHS-funded surgery being outsourced, Jeremy Hunt’s warning over risks is long overdue

Jeremy Hunt’s call for private hospital companies to improve their safety and quality standards after a damning report on the sector by the regulator marks a long overdue – though still tacit – acknowledgment that the private sector’s business model is based on an archaic and dangerous concept of medical practice. Usually in private hospitals an independent surgeon operates alone and is off-site and not available for post-operative care as soon as their patient is back on the ward. If anything goes wrong, the nearest NHS hospital is an ambulance dash away. This model poses distinct risks to patients.

This is increasingly concerning as a growing share of all NHS-funded surgery (almost 600,000 hip and knee replacements a year) is now carried out in private hospitals – NHS patients now account for roughly half of all their admissions. Continue reading... The Guardian

Younger GPs 'really don't like' working long hours, says senior medic as pressure piles on surgeries

Younger GPs 'really don't like' working long hours, says senior medic as pressure piles on surgeries An unwillingness by new GPs to work as hard as their older colleagues is threatening to overwhelm surgeries, a senior medic has suggested.

Dr Laurence Buckman, formerly the highest-ranking GP at the British Medical Association (BMA), said the appetite among young family doctors to “go beyond the extra mile has evaporated” in recent years. The Daily Telegraph

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Chief Medical Officer issues a warning over the antibiotic-resistance crisis 

Chief Medical Officer issues a warning over the antibiotic-resistance crisis In a talk, The UK's Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies described antibiotic resistance as 'biggest global health challenge we face' as she calls for better prescription regulations. The Daily Mail

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