Mistakes see Northampton General Hospital staff not paid for overtime

Mistakes see Northampton General Hospital staff not paid for overtime Pay packets of some Northampton General Hospital staff were short by as much as £1,500 after a payroll error.

The Chron understands the issue was due to several managers making the same mistake while using the computerised roster.

As a result, a large number of staff did not have monthly enhancements – mostly overtime – officially signed off. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Children’s services in Northamptonshire are no longer rated ‘inadequate’

Children’s services in Northamptonshire are no longer rated ‘inadequate’ Council services for Northamptonshire children have improved across all areas, a new report from Ofsted inspectors says. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

See also:

• Northamptonshire’s children’s services will move over to a new trust within a year after Ofsted result Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Promote e-cigarettes widely as substitute for smoking says new RCP report

Promote e-cigarettes widely as substitute for smoking says new RCP report A new report, ‘Nicotine without smoke: tobacco harm reduction’ concludes that e-cigarettes are likely to be beneficial to UK public health. Smokers can therefore be reassured and encouraged to use them, and the public can be reassured that e-cigarettes are much safer than smoking. Royal College of Physicians

See also:

• RCGP response to RCP report on e-cigarettes Royal College of General Practitioners
• Give e-cigs to smokers, say doctors BBC News
• GPs advised to 'promote e-cigarettes widely' as smoking substitute GP Online
• E-cigarettes 'much less harmful than smoking and should be encouraged' major report concludes The Independent

Vulnerable children turned away from mental health treatment report finds

Vulnerable children turned away from mental health treatment report finds A report on the mental health and well-being of looked-after children notes that a significant number of local authorities and health services are failing to identify mental health issues when children enter care.

Almost half of children in care have a diagnosable mental health disorder, with looked-after children four times more likely than their non-looked after peers to have a mental health condition. House of Commons Education Select Committee

See also:

• Care children denied mental health help BBC News
• Children in care denied mental health services because of placement ‘uncertainty’ Community Care
• Many children in care denied mental health treatment, says report The Guardian

Doctor row: Both sides ready to fight on

Doctor row: Both sides ready to fight on Ministers and doctors have both vowed to fight on as the first all-out doctor strikes in the history of the NHS ended in England without any major problems. BBC News

See also:

• Junior doctors walk out for the second day running The Daily Mail
• BMA hails overwhelming turnout as thousands join junior doctor strikes GP Online
• Equality watchdog warns junior doctors' contract is potentially illegal The Guardian
• Junior doctors' strike has become the mother of all deadlocks The Guardian

End-of-life care heading for ‘meltdown’ without cash boost, warns cancer charity chief

End-of-life care heading for ‘meltdown’ without cash boost, warns cancer charity chief End-of-life care is heading for a “meltdown” amid growing demand for services, warns the chief of a cancer charity, following a new analysis of projected deaths from the disease published today.

Nearly 144,000 people are expected to die of cancer in 2020, says Macmillan Cancer Support—equivalent to one person dying of the disease every four minutes, with potentially 15,000 more cancer deaths in 2020 in England than in 2010. OnMedica

GMB to ballot ambulance staff on possible industrial action

GMB to ballot ambulance staff on possible industrial action Union claims health secretary has broken promises to improve pay and conditions. OnMedica

NHS technology: saving the health service one byte at a time

NHS technology: saving the health service one byte at a time The NHS has to make £22bn of efficiency savings by 2020 and intelligent use of IT is key in making that happen

Can technology save the NHS? That was the question addressed by a recent Guardian roundtable, supported by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), which brought together clinicians, policymakers and healthcare IT experts.

It’s a question that has some urgency. The NHS has been told to make £22bn of efficiency savings by 2020, and at least part of those savings will have to come from the intelligent use of IT. But the failure of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) – a centralised patient record system abandoned by the government in 2013 – has resulted in a decidedly patchy landscape in the NHS, where, as Jeremy Taylor, chief executive of National Voices, a patient organisation, put it: “We’ve got email, Skype, text and people having access to their own health records electronically, side-by-side with getting letters by snail mail and fax”.

It’s not all right for patients to be walking into health organisations that feel like the 1980s

Patients still prefer being visited by a nurse to plugging themselves into a machine Continue reading... The Guardian

Dramas and soaps 'aid public understanding of mental health issues'

Dramas and soaps 'aid public understanding of mental health issues' Mind survey finds TV plays and reports have valuable role in encouraging people to seek help for anxiety and schizophrenia

Soap operas and news reports about mental health can play a valuable role in increasing understanding of depression, anxiety and schizophrenia, and in encouraging people with problems to seek help, research has suggested.

The mental health charity Mind organised a survey of more than 2,000 people, which found that half of the respondents who had seen a storyline involving a character with mental health problems said it had helped their understanding of the issues. Continue reading... The Guardian