Missed appointments cost Northampton General Hospital almost £4 million

Missed appointments cost Northampton General Hospital almost £4 million Northampton General Hospital trust has lost almost £4 million in a year due to thousands of patients not turning up to appointments, figures show.

Data from NHS England shows that in the 12 months to September 2018, 34,584 people either did not show up for an outpatient appointment at the trust, or arrived too late to be seen.

With the NHS struggling for funds amid budget cuts and increased demand, the British Medical Association said it was crucial appointments are not wasted while the health service is “under incredible stress”. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Combined NHS Performance Summary: November – December 2018

Combined NHS Performance Summary: November – December 2018 Today, NHS England published its Combined Performance Summary, which provides data on key performance measures for November and December of last year. SitRep data for the first week of 2019 was also released, giving a more up-to-date analysis of how the NHS is coping this winter.

Here we show some of these statistics and how they compare with previous years. Nuffield Trust

See also:

• NHS coping under pressure so far this winter The Health Foundation

Mental health: poor NHS provision is failing young people

Mental health: poor NHS provision is failing young people In 2017-18 only three in ten children and young people with a mental health condition received NHS-funded treatment, and many more faced unacceptably long waits for treatment.

The government has committed to providing ‘parity of esteem’ between mental and physical health services, but it is still unclear what it means by this in practice.

It also has no comprehensive, long-term plan for how it will fulfil its commitment to implement Future in Mind, which set out a cross-sector vision for how to support children and young people’s mental health. House of Commons Public Accounts Committee 

See also:

• Too many children 'not being treated for mental health problems' BBC News
• Young people 'turned away' from NHS mental health support left to hit crisis point, MPs warn The Independent
• Poor provision on mental health is failing young people OnMedica
• NHS 'failing' pupils on mental health, say MPs TES News

Skill and dedication of NHS staff praised as health service productivity outstrips the rest of the economy

Skill and dedication of NHS staff praised as health service productivity outstrips the rest of the economy Hardworking NHS staff boosted productivity by 3% in a single year, dramatically outstripping productivity growth in the rest of the economy new figures have revealed today.

Data released today by the Office for National Statistics shows that NHS productivity for the financial year ending 2017 grew by 3% in England, more than treble the 0.8% achieved across wider the UK economy in 2016/17.

Health service productivity in England also outpaced that achieved in health services elsewhere in the UK, with a combined UK health service figure of 2.5% in 2016. NHS England

Unmet needs: improper social care assessments for older people in England

Unmet needs: improper social care assessments for older people in England The authors of this report spoke with older people and their relatives in twelve cities and towns across England. Some said that assessors appeared not to understand their disabilities and support needs. In other cases, before beginning an assessment, assessors announced that services would be cut regardless of an individual’s actual need. And in some cases services were denied or cut significantly, affecting older people’s health and wellbeing. The report concludes that older people in England are at risk of not getting adequate assistance to live independent, dignified lives due to uneven assessments for social services. Human Rights Watch

Are Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms being binned?

Are Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms being binned? Consider this, it is just over three years since the last piece of the jigsaw in Andrew Lansley's controversial NHS reforms was put into place.

In 2015, health visitors moved into local government to complete the transfer of public health from the NHS to councils.

It completed what former NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson once described as a reform programme so big it could be seen from space. BBC News

PrEP: Postcode lottery of anti-HIV drug trial

PrEP: Postcode lottery of anti-HIV drug trial A game-changer in the fight against HIV, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a highly effective drug that reduces the risk of acquiring the condition. But as the NHS trials PrEP across England, many at high risk have struggled to get hold of the drug.

The Impact trial was launched in England in October 2017 with an initial 10,000 places at sexual health clinics for people at high risk of contracting HIV.

But there has been great demand for the drug, with sexual health charities inundated with stories of people being turned away due to a lack of places.

Responding to a request for comment for this article, NHS England said it was planning to fund 13,000 more places on the trial. BBC News

Mental health patients missing GP appointments 'at risk'

Mental health patients missing GP appointments 'at risk' Mental health patients who miss two or more GP appointments within the space of a year are eight times more likely to die in the subsequent 18 months than those who miss none, a study suggests.

The University of Glasgow study looked at 274,547 patients with long-term mental health conditions, at surgeries across Scotland between 2013 and 2016. BBC News

Thousands of NHS hospital consultants intend to quit years before retirement, survey finds

Thousands of NHS hospital consultants intend to quit years before retirement, survey finds Thousands of senior hospital doctors are planning to leave the NHS years early, according to a survey.

Six out of 10 consultants intend to retire before or at the age of 60 to cut back their working hours, the research found.

The British Medical Association, which questioned more than 4,000 consultants for the survey, said so many experienced doctors leaving would be “potentially disastrous”.

More than two-thirds (69.7 per cent) of those surveyed were hoping to achieve a better work-life balance. The Independent

See also:

• Pension rules force consultants to retire early British Medical Association
• BMA findings on hospital consultants leaving NHS early are ‘highly concerning,’ NHS Employers

Waiting times for NHS cancer treatment are at worst ever level

Waiting times for NHS cancer treatment are at worst ever level Record 20,000 patients a month are suffering delays in seeing a consultant or starting therapies

Record numbers of patients are not getting vital cancer care on time because NHS England performance against waiting time targets has fallen to its lowest ever level, according to official figures.

Hospitals are increasingly having to force patients to wait for care because they cannot keep up with the growing numbers being referred by GPs who fear they have the disease. The Guardian

See also:

• Number of NHS patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment rises to half a million -Channel 4 News

Health department signs two contracts to store drugs under ‘no-deal’ Brexit

Health department signs two contracts to store drugs under ‘no-deal’ Brexit Officials hope third contract for warehousing will be signed shortly, with total cost of £10m

The government has signed two contracts to secure warehouse space for the storage of drugs as part of ‘no-deal’ Brexit planning but officials are still working to secure a third with just 11 weeks to go before the UK leaves the EU.

Details of the Department of Health’s work on one of the most sensitive areas of Brexit planning emerged as the government comes under intensive pressure to say which firms it is working with following controversy over a £13.8m contract given to a ‘start-up’ freight company to operate ferries in the case of no deal, and questions about the way it was allocated. The Guardian

Social care is ageist – and the new NHS plan doesn’t even try to fix it

Social care is ageist – and the new NHS plan doesn’t even try to fix it | Frances Ryan The 10-year plan must address the damaging generational divide, foster fair funding and devise a way to share the burden

“We are taking a big step to secure the future of the NHS for our children and their children,” Theresa May told an audience in Liverpool on Monday as she launched the NHS 10-year plan. May’s emphasis on generations of NHS users may be cliched political rhetoric – the children, as they say, are our future – but by pitching public services as a deal between the generations, she quite unintentionally landed on something important.

This country’s health and care system is currently riddled with a damaging generational divide, one that manifests itself in anything from a deficit in joined up services to outright bad feeling. The Guardian

NHS trans row as men get access to women's wards if they identify as female

NHS trans row as men get access to women's wards if they identify as female Hospitals routinely allow male patients to share female wards if they self-identify as women, an investigation by The Telegraph has found.

Despite official guidance intended to eliminate mixed sex wards, none of the NHS trusts in England require a patient to have begun transition for them to be treated as their preferred sex, according to responses to more than 100 Freedom of Information requests. The Daily Telegraph

NHS crisis: 12,000 patients were left waiting in the back of ambulances outside A&E last week

NHS crisis: 12,000 patients were left waiting in the back of ambulances outside A&E last week Thousands of NHS patients were kept waiting in the backs of ambulances for half an hour or more last week, official figures have revealed.

Hospitals across England are buckling under the strain of winter, as data shows the the first week of January was the worst so far this season.

The number of patients waiting at least 30 minutes to be handed over into A&E from ambulances was 26 per cent higher than in the previous week.

Nearly 3,000 patients were forced to wait an hour or more to be taken into busy casualty units, with more than 9,000 waiting between 30 to 60 minutes. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Man died 'in agony' after stroke amid ambulance delays BBC News
• Wife was told it would take an HOUR for an ambulance to arrive when her husband had a stroke The Daily Mail

Shocking new pictures from HES site in Newcastle lay bare scale of NHS body parts scandal

Shocking new pictures from HES site in Newcastle lay bare scale of NHS body parts scandal Shocking new images showing mountains of clinical waste stockpiled in a disposal site reveal the true scale of the NHS body parts scandal.

Tonnes of fluorescent orange and yellow bags stuffed with infectious waste were pictured spilling out of overflowing bins at Healthcare Environmental Services' (HES) base in Benton, North Tyneside. The Daily Mail