Fit for the future: how should the incoming Government help the NHS?

Fit for the future: how should the incoming Government help the NHS? The NHS consistently ranks among the issues that voters care most about and we are now approaching a General Election which has been characterised by strong messages on healthcare from all sides.

As the membership body that represents leaders across healthcare providers, clinical commissioners and local systems, the NHS Confederation has surveyed its members in England to gauge what they feel are their most critical priorities for an incoming Government.

This report summarises their most pressing issues: workforce, social care and capital investment.

See also:

• Health leaders set priorities for new Government to tackle huge pressures NHS Confederation
• Nine in 10 NHS bosses say staffing crisis endangering patients The Guardian

Evaluating integrated care: why are evaluations not producing the results we expect?

Evaluating integrated care: why are evaluations not producing the results we expect? With a number of different integrated care models not reducing hospital admissions as expected, this briefing outlines the reasons why this might be happening. It includes advice for model design and implementation, for commissioners of evaluation, and for evaluators on how to address these issues. Nuffield Trust

See also:

• Integrated care and the complexity of ordinary lives Nuffield Trust

Plugging the leaks in the UK care home industry: Strategies for resolving the financial crisis in the residential and nursing home sector

Plugging the leaks in the UK care home industry: Strategies for resolving the financial crisis in the residential and nursing home sector A report from the Centre for Health and Public Interest (CHPI) identifies where each pound that goes into the care home industry ends up, by using a forensic study of the accounts of more than 830 adult care home companies, including the 26 largest providers.

The outlook for councils’ funding: is austerity over?

The outlook for councils’ funding: is austerity over? A growing elderly population, increases in the number of disabled adults, and increases in wage and other costs, mean that English councils will likely need billions in extra funding over the next parliament if they are to meet the rising costs of providing adult social care. That will be required just to maintain services at current levels. And councils’ spending on local public services per resident will, next year, still be at least 20% below 2009–10 levels, on average. Institute for Fiscal Studies

NHS to pay tax bills to get doctors back to work

NHS to pay tax bills to get doctors back to work Doctors in England have been promised their tax bills will be covered by the NHS in an attempt to get them back doing overtime shifts.

Doctors have been refusing to do extra work because they were being landed with bills after changes to how much can be accrued in pensions tax-free.

Senior NHS figures and ministers have signed off on the plan amid concern about the impact on waiting times. BBC News

See also:

• NHS bosses are to spend tens of millions of pounds paying doctors' pension tax bills The Daily Mail
• NHS to pay doctors' tax bills in attempt to avert a winter crisis The Daily Telegraph
• NHS to pay doctors' pension tax in bid to end workforce crisis ahead of winter GPonline

Lib Dems join pledging war over NHS with plan for extra £35bn

Lib Dems join pledging war over NHS with plan for extra £35bn Plan would take NHS England’s budget to £142.6bn by 2023-24 as £12.9bn will go to social care

The Liberal Democrats have joined the bidding war over the NHS by promising to invest an extra £35bn into health and social care over the next five years.

The party plans to fund this through its signature policy of adding a penny to the basic rate of income tax, which it says would raise £7bn. This would see NHS England’s budget grow to £142.8bn by 2023-24. The Guardian

See also:

• Liberal Democrat pledge would double recent growth in health spending but falls just short of what's needed to modernise the service The Health Foundation
• Lib Dems right to identify workforce, capital and social care as key NHS Confederation
• General election 2019: PM puts corporation cuts on hold to help fund NHS BBC News
• General election 2019: Income tax rise will boost NHS budget - Lib Dems BBC News
• Boris Johnson shelves plans to slash corporation tax to pour £6billion into the NHS instead The Daily Mail
• Brexit will cost NHS additional £60m a year to recruit doctors and nurses from abroad, Liberal Democrats claim The Independent

Revealed: NHS running short of dozens of lifesaving medicines

Revealed: NHS running short of dozens of lifesaving medicines Internal document seen by the Guardian shows low supplies for heart, cancer and anti-epilepsy drugs

The NHS is running short of dozens of lifesaving medicines including treatments for cancer, heart conditions and epilepsy, the Guardian has learned.

An internal 24-page document circulated to some doctors last Friday from the medicine supply team at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), headed “commercial-sensitive”, listed many drugs currently hit by shortages at the NHS.

See also:

• Patients shouldn't panic or stockpile in the wake of medicine supply shortages, says RCGP Royal College of General Practitioners
• Britain's 'unprecedented' drug shortage BBC News
• NHS is short of 86 drugs including cancer, epilepsy and heart disease The Daily Mail

Statins do not harm the memory – and may prevent cognitive decline for some

Statins do not harm the memory – and may prevent cognitive decline for some Statins don't harm the memory – and could even prevent cognitive decline in those with heart disease or high risk of dementia.

The findings follow a long debate about possible side effects of the daily pills, taken by around 8 million adults in the UK to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The six-year study of more than 1,000 people aged 70 to 90, who underwent a battery of tests and brain scans, found no link between statins and memory impairment. The Daily Telegraph

See also:

• Effects of Statins on Memory, Cognition, and Brain Volume in the Elderly (abstract) Journal of the American College of Cardiology
• Statins DON'T harm your memory, study suggests The Daily Mail

Why a spray almost identical to 'party' drug ketamine is set to be approved to 'treat' depression

Why a spray almost identical to 'party' drug ketamine is set to be approved to 'treat' depression The illegal, hallucinogenic 'party' drug ketamine is addictive, physically perilous and known to increase the risk of suicide.

Now a pharmaceutical version, called esketamine (brand name Spravato), is set to be approved as a wonder cure for people with depression so severe it may drive them to suicide.

This has prompted protests from experts who argue that the tests on esketamine have been inadequate and that even in those tests, involving some 1,600 people, esketamine was associated with six deaths. The Daily Mail

Older people have paid the most into our NHS yet are often denied cancer treatment, barred from drug trials, and see their mental health neglected

Older people have paid the most into our NHS yet are often denied cancer treatment, barred from drug trials, and see their mental health neglected When retired engineer Gregory Kay was admitted to a nursing home aged 66, six weeks before he died, he was taking 930 pills a month — 31 pills every day.

Gregory had been diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2006 and had been on medication ever since, says his widow Mary, 70, a writer and mother-of-four with five grandchildren, from Southsea, Hampshire. The Daily Mail