Fines over excess A&E patients means Northampton General Hospital is set for £18 million deficit

Fines over excess A&E patients means Northampton General Hospital is set for £18 million deficit Fines and penalties mostly relating to high numbers of A&E patients is contributing to a multi-million pound deficit at Northampton General Hospital.

The hospital is currently overspent by £12.5m this financial year, but forecasts by finance director Phil Bradley predict that will increase to £18.5m by April.

A complex system of penalties is to blame, with NGH being penalised for huge numbers of patients through the doors of its A&E departments even though it has no control over the influx. If numbers breach a ceratin threshold, the hospital gets less money per patient. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Child health high on the agenda, but political uncertainty and public health cuts pose risk to progress, warns UK’s top paediatrician

Child health high on the agenda, but political uncertainty and public health cuts pose risk to progress, warns UK’s top paediatrician The RCPCH has published State of Child Health: Two Years On, which highlights progress made against the policy recommendations in our landmark State of Child Health 2017 report.

Children’s doctors say they are “witnessing a hugely welcome shift towards the prioritisation of child health” but warn child poverty, cuts to public health services and uncertainties about Brexit pose substantial threats to progress. Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

See also:

• State of Child health: Two years on scorecard Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
• Child poverty and Brexit threaten improvements to children's health outcomes Nuffield Trust
• Brexit threatens children’s health with concerns over recruiting specialist doctors, report warns The Independent

Public preferences for health gains and cures: a discrete choice experiment

Public preferences for health gains and cures: a discrete choice experiment Whether or not society values curative therapies more highly (or less highly) than the sum of the iterative improvements that might come from conventional therapy has been highlighted as an important area for research. The aim of this research was thus to explore society’s preferences across curative and non-curative therapies and large and small health gains, via a discrete choice experiment. Office for Health Economics

Teen one of first UK proton-beam patients

Teen one of first UK proton-beam patients Fifteen-year-old Mason Kettley, who has a rare brain cancer, is about to become one of the first UK patients to have proton-beam therapy, at a new dedicated treatment centre.

He is starting treatment at the £125m centre at Manchester's Christie hospital.

Previously, most patients needing the treatment had to travel abroad.

The specialist radiotherapy targets cancers without damaging tissues around the tumours. BBC News

Vulnerable dementia patients could be locked up for three years without review under ‘rushed’ government reform

Vulnerable dementia patients could be locked up for three years without review under ‘rushed’ government reform People with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and dementia could be locked away for as long as three years without a review under “rushed” reforms put forward by the government.

Charities have expressed dismay at changes to deprivation of liberty safeguards, used to ensure people without capacity to consent to their care are not detained inappropriately.

They warn the measures would create “worrying conflicts of interest” by giving care home operators a greater role in the reviews and assessing whether their paying residents are receiving good care. The Independent

Dying man given bill for tens of thousands of pounds for NHS treatment

Dying man given bill for tens of thousands of pounds for NHS treatment Doctors say making migrant patients pay for NHS palliative care contravenes the Hippocratic oath

Nasar Ullah Khan is lying in a hospital bed in Birmingham. He is 38 and has weeks, if not days, left to live. Khan, a Pakistani national who came to the UK nine years ago and overstayed his visa, was refused a lifesaving heart transplant just before Christmas because of his ineligibility for free healthcare. Now he’s been told that he will be charged before he can receive end-of-life care. He was handed his first invoice for £16,000 on New Year’s Eve, days after he was told he would probably die within a month. The payment for hospital treatment already received is due at the end of January. The Guardian

My patient made racist remarks about me. I decided to do something about it

My patient made racist remarks about me. I decided to do something about it I’ve encountered racism since I was a junior doctor. We rarely talk about it, but it hurts like hell and damages the NHS

Every day doctors experience some form of abuse in the NHS yet we rarely talk about it. There’s lots of evidence of the racism we face: I’ve seen it, colleagues have told me about it, and last week I experienced it. This time, however, I decided to do something about it. The Guardian

Asthma rising among 'generation rent' as damp and mould boost emergency hospital visits, experts say

Asthma rising among 'generation rent' as damp and mould boost emergency hospital visits, experts say “Generation rent” is suffering worsening levels of asthma because of the deteriorating quality of housing, a new report suggests.

A survey of 10,000 sufferers found that “millennials” - those aged between 18 and 29 - are now twice as likely to be hospitalised as a result of the respiratory condition than those in their 60s. The Daily Telegraph

Women will be told not to be afraid of smear tests in new NHS campaign

Women will be told not to be afraid of smear tests in new NHS campaign The Public Health England information campaign will launch in six weeks' time. There will be adverts on TV and social media designed to increase take-up of smear tests and screening. The Daily Mail