This blog covers the latest UK health care news, publications, policy announcements, events and information focused on the NHS, as well as the latest media stories and local news coverage of the NHS Trusts in Northamptonshire.
Costs of stroke three times higher than thought A report from the Stroke Association estimates that the current cost of stroke to the UK is £26 billion every year, a threefold increase from the previous estimated cost of £9 billion.
The 2000 days project: A new approach to NHS reform While there are lots of inspiring examples of new care provision, current reform struggles to deliver the change needed, and integrated care is not happening on the scale required.
The NHS must re-energise its approach to handle rising demand, hospital debt, slow technological innovation and growing public expectations.
An Industry Coalition Group of clinicians, senior leaders in hospitals, primary care, the central bodies, charities and the private sector met earlier this year to take on the challenge. As a result a new approach has been developed, culminating in a published report - The 2000 days project. Healthcare at Home
Viva la devolution: devolved public-services commissioning This report argues for the devolution of over £100 billion of public-services spending, including 95 per cent of the NHS’ budget. It suggests that 38 large councils across England should control spending to improve outcomes for citizens and that NHS England and CCGs should be abolished to cede commissioning to local authorities. Reform
Reduced number of GP training places advertised for 2018 The number of GP specialty training places on offer across the UK in the first round of recruitment for 2018 has shrunk compared to the number offered this year, official figures suggest. GPonline
Leading charities have urged the Government to urgently address the “crisis” facing mental health services in the forthcoming Budget.
In a letter shared exclusively with The Independent, mental health bodies issued an unprecedented warning to ministers that if budgets are not increased and protected, the majority of mental health sufferers will remain “locked out” of vital services.
Almost a year on from Theresa May’s pledge to improve mental health support and ensure it has parity with physical health services, the letter accuses her of setting out “unambitious” targets, urging that services “cannot go on” with the current levels of funding. The Independent
Earlier this year NHS England issued a diktat ordering hundreds of organisations to rework their publicity materials, claiming that inconstistencies could be fuelling pressures on Accident & Emergency units.
Under the new rules, every trust is told to place the NHS logo above the name of their organisation, instead of beside it. The Daily Telegraph
'Epidemic' of loneliness affecting families More than half of parents suffer from loneliness as they feel ‘cut off’ from friends and family, a new survey from The Action for Children has revealed. The survey was with 2,000 UK parents with children. The Daily Mail
A firm is targeting NHS family doctors to sign up to a scheme offering private appointments around their contracted NHS hours.
It has prompted fears that desperate patients, struggling to see their GP, will be forced to stump up to see doctors charging for slots during lunch, and before and after surgeries and during evenings and weekends.
An official NHS report in June revealed one in nine patients – 11 per cent – could not get an appointment the last time they tried.
Doctaly already has 25 practices on board following a 'successful' pilot scheme in London and is now rolling it service out nationally from next week. The Daily Mail
Stoptober 2016 campaign evaluation Stoptober is a major annual event to encourage smokers to quit for 28 days in October - with the aim of stopping smoking permanently.
This document measures the impact of Stoptober in 2016, its fifth year of operation. Public Health England
The project in Millom and its surrounding area of Morecambe Bay is one of 50 experimental “vanguard” sites set up by the NHS in England to piece together this fragmented system, which is increasingly struggling to cope with growing numbers of elderly people with multiple chronic conditions. Although the scope of each vanguard varies, all aim to break down silos by combining budgets and having staff from different parts of the health service work more closely together. Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, wants these sites to be models for the rest of the service. The Economist
Hundreds of trainee GPs have not received their salaries from the outsourcing company responsible for paying them, forcing some to turn to charities for emergency funds.
Some GPs have been unable to cover their mortgages because of the delays by Capita, which holds a contract to administer training grants for GPs through a body called Primary Care Services England. Continue reading...The Guardian
The number of patients waiting an hour or more to be transferred from an ambulance into an NHS A&E ward has doubled in England over the past two years.
There were 111,524 people who waited at least 60 minutes in an ambulance in 2016-17, up from 51,115 in 2014-15, prompting fears about patient safety. The increase was even more pronounced in some parts of the country, with figures from South East Coast ambulance service (Secamb) showing the number more than quadrupled over the same period, while in London it almost trebled. Continue reading...The Guardian
Almost a quarter of pupils aged 11 to 15 said they had used drugs compared to just 19 per cent who had smoked.
Drugs included legal highs, illegal substances such as cannabis, crack and cocaine as well as nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, which is also known as hippy crack.
One in ten had used drugs in the past month and boys were slightly more likely to have tried them than girls.
The figures also revealed that the percentage of 11- to 15-year-olds taking drugs has risen sharply in the last two years. The Daily Mail
Stephen James Martin was found dead in his new care flat in St George's Street, off Barrack Road, in August 2016, just three days after being discharged from St Andrews Hospital. Northampton Chronicle and Echo
In July, we published data which showed that for the first time there were more nurses and midwives leaving the register than joining it. Today’s figures show that trend is continuing. Over the last 12 months the number of UK graduates leaving the profession has increased by nine percent.
The number of nurses and midwives from Europe leaving the register has also increased by 67 percent, while the number joining the register from the EU has dropped dramatically by 89 percent. Nursing and Midwifery Council
Measuring up: your community and your workforce Find out more about NHS Employers' new tool which compares your current workforce data with data from your local community, in order to start the conversation about recruiting locally to increase workforce supply.
Rotten teeth 'more likely' in deprived areas Children from Blackburn are four times more likely to have fillings than their counterparts in South Gloucestershire, says a new report on dental health.
The report found that as well as there being a regional divide, there was a consistent gap between the dental health of the rich and poor in England.
People from the most deprived backgrounds were twice as likely to be admitted to hospital for dental work.
But the Nuffield Trust report found an overall improvement in dental health.
Speaking in front of MPs on the Commons Health Select Committee, Mr Hunt accepted there were unacceptable gaps in rotas, but said the Government was working to close them. The Independent
One in seven GPs 'turning to drink or drugs to cope with work stress' One in seven GPs is turning to drink or drugs to help them “deal with work pressures” a new survey suggests. The poll of family doctors found almost half said their ability to care for patients had been affected by the stress of their job.
GPs said they were downing bottles of wine, taking painkillers to sleep and anti-depressants in response to pressures of work.
One said their reaction to a suicidal patient had been resentment.
The survey of more than 800 GPs by Pulse magazine found around 11 per cent had turned to alcohol, and 6 per cent to prescription drugs in response to work pressures. The Daily Telegraph See also:
Agency, bank and overtime spending in UK maternity units in 2016 This report finds that NHS spending on temporary staffing in midwifery reached more than £97 million in 2016. It argues that the current shortage of midwives and pay restraint are contributory factors to the increasing reliance on temporary staffing. Royal College of Midwives
Lifting the cap: the fiscal and economic impact of lifting the NHS pay cap This briefing examines the fiscal and economic impact of two alternative scenarios for NHS pay over the next two years: increasing pay in line with Consumer Price Index inflation, and a ‘catch-up’ rate of increasing NHS pay in line with private sector earnings plus one per cent. Institute for Public Policy Research
Moving more, ageing well This report highlights the need for innovative solutions for keeping older people active and independent that could save billions of pounds in NHS and social care costs by preventing disease. It recommends that teaching health and social care professionals such as pharmacists and Meals on Wheels staff to deliver exercise interventions, could be key to curtailing the UK’s growing ageing crisis. UKactive
We reported that analysis by the regulator NHS Improvement showed there could have been 280,000 more non-emergency operations, at 100 English hospital trusts, last year.
There were said to be 140 minutes of unused time per operating list.
So, is it simply a case of improving efficiency, or are there wider problems that need to be addressed across the NHS?
Are the solutions to be found in the way operating theatres are managed or are theatre staff having to stand idle because of logjams elsewhere in the system? BBC News
Male infertility treatment ‘insensitive’ Male infertility care can be insensitive and one-sided, says charity Fertility Network UK which has surveyed men seeking help to become fathers.
Men can feel excluded, with female partners being the main focus of attention in clinics, it found.
The charity says men's needs are too often ignored, which must change.
Gareth Down, 31, set up a support group for men with fertility problems because he says he had nowhere to turn for help when he needed it. BBC News
GPs refuse to collect data on patients' immigration status GPs are crossing out the supplementary questions section of new GMS1 forms because they do not want to be involved with gathering information on patients' immigration status, a medical charity has said. GPonline
The head of the NHS has rejected Jeremy Hunt’s insistence that its staff’s pay rise next year should depend on them improving their productivity as “an own goal of the first magnitude”.
Simon Stevens’s remarks set him on a collision course with the health secretary weeks before the budget, in which Philip Hammond is expected to set out what salary increase the NHS’s 1.7 million staff will get from next April. Continue reading...The Guardian
Novartis and Bayer made the threat against 12 health boards in Cumbria and North-East England which have advised doctors to use a different treatment for a devastating eye condition.
Doctors have accused the pharmaceutical giants of trying to 'dictate' which drugs they can use. The Daily Mail See also:
Liothyronine, used to treat patients with an underactive thyroid, has soared from 16p per tablet to £9.22 – an increase of 5,662 per cent.
The medicine, a synthetic version of the hormone T3, is relied on by sufferers who do not respond well to the cheaper alternative levothyroxine which is the standard treatment.
Because there is only one supplier of the drug, it means thousands of patients could be forced to travel to Europe to buy liothyronine, where a packet costs just a few euros. The Daily Mail
Guidance: Data security and protection for health and care organisations This document sets out what all health and care organisations will be expected to do to demonstrate that they are putting into practice the 10 data security standards recommended by the National Data Guardian. Department of Health
Chief Nursing Officers (CNOs) from the four countries of the UK, supported by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), have today launched three animations that outline how nurses and midwives can use the Enabling professionalism in nursing and midwifery practice guide to reflect on their practice. Nursing and Midwifery Council
Report calls for better mental health support in the workplace "Up to 300,000 people with long-term mental health problems have to leave their jobs each year, a report says," writes BBC News. This was just one of the UK media outlets that published the findings of a report looking at the extent of mental ill health in the workplace, and the related economic and social costs. NHS Choices
The £97m bill for 'midwife shortage' UK maternity units are turning to expensive temporary staffing arrangements such as overtime and agency staff to plug gaps in midwife rotas, union leaders say.
Royal College of Midwives data showed the bill hit nearly £100m in 2016, with services having to pay hourly fees twice as high as the normal rates. BBC News
The Front Line In The Battle For The Nation's Mental Health Isn't The NHS - HuffPost UK Half of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14 and after school, the average adult will spend 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. The front lines in the battle for good mental health in the UK are not within our NHS, they are in our nation's schools, colleges, universities and workplaces. By the time we reach the NHS, all too often we've already reached crisis point. HuffPost
There were 34,205 cases of patients under 10 needing hospital treatment for dental caries in the year to March, the youngest less than a year old, according to the faculty of dental surgery (FDS) at the Royal College of Surgeons. The Guardian
At least three NHS foundation trusts in Yorkshire, the West Country and northern England have set up firms with the intention of taking thousands of workers off the NHS’s books. The Guardian
The motion, due to be debated by a national conference of doctors next week, follows repeated claims by the British Medical Association that the health service is at breaking point. The Telegraph
Kettering General Hospital celebrates its 120th birthday Kettering General Hospital is celebrating its 120th birthday today (Monday, October 30). Over that time the hospital has supported the healthcare needs of millions of local people from the cradle to the grave. Northamptonshire Telegraph
Rising pressure: the NHS workforce challenge This report analyses the profile and trends of the NHS workforce. It also focuses on two pressure points: the impact of the removal of the NHS bursary on student nurse numbers, and staff retention.
It has found increasing cause for concern. The report highlights that national policy and planning for the NHS workforce in England is not fit for purpose. It shows high staff turnover and workforce instability, and a drop in the number of trainee nurses.
The report outlines the growing gap between the national rhetoric of short-term announcements and policies addressing the NHS workforce, and the reality of no overall strategy and falling staff numbers. The Health Foundation
NHS pressures – future trends We are aware that the NHS is under growing pressure, with A&E attendances, waiting times and admissions all on the rise in recent years. We are undertaking regular analysis on our new pressure points in the NHS webpage, where we have highlighted several worrying trends as spiralling demand outstrips the ability of services to cope.
Based on current trends, our assessment is that unless urgent action is taken, millions more patients will be waiting for longer than four hours for treatment in A&E, and there will be dramatic rises in the number of people waiting on trolleys for treatment, or at home for non-emergency elective procedures. The British Medical Association
Sharing experiences improves well being of healthcare staff Healthcare staff who regularly share the emotional, social or ethical challenges they face in the workplace experience less psychological distress, improved teamwork and increased empathy and compassion for patients and colleagues, a new study commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research reports.
In the first in-depth study in the UK, researchers from the University of Surrey, Kings College London, the University of Sheffield and The King’s Fund examined the impact of Schwartz Center Rounds®(Rounds), on both clinical and non-clinical staff. Rounds are monthly forums that offer a safe space for staff to share experiences with colleagues and to discuss the challenges they face in their work and its impact on them. University of Surrey
The new disability confident standard Important information and useful resources to support organisations to achieve the new disability confident standard. NHS Employers
IVF: Patients face postcode lottery for treatment Nearly 90% of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) fail to offer would-be-mothers the recommended three cycles of IVF treatment, new figures show.
Of the 208 CCGs in England, only 24 meet national guidelines and seven offer no treatment at all.
Couples trying to conceive through IVF have described the disparity as "crazy and unfair".
Campaign group Fertility Fairness has urged the government to intervene.
The nurse hired to combat cancer myths online A cancer charity has appointed a digital nurse to combat "fake news" online, which they say leaves patients "scared and at risk of bogus cures".
Macmillan Cancer Support found two-fifths of people with cancer looked up information about their diagnosis on the internet.
One in eight of those went online because they didn't fully understand what their doctor had told them.
Glaswegian nurse Ellen McPake, who landed the job, says she wants to correct the misinformation that exists. BBC News See also:
Southend Hospital had been linked to a trial where hospital patients could be discharged to people's spare rooms.
The hospital distanced itself from the idea following criticism by politicians and health groups.
But Mr Dunne told BBC Radio 5 live he "wouldn't immediately reject it" as "one's got to trial different things".
The pilot scheme, proposed in Essex, would have seen some 30 hospital patients staying in local residents' spare rooms instead of in hospital while they waited to be discharged. BBC News
The mental health response following the Grenfell Tower fire is the biggest operation of its kind in Europe, a doctor has said, with the number of people affected likely to exceed 11,000.
The unprecedented need following the blaze has transformed the Central and North West London NHS Trust (CNWL) into “the largest trauma service in the UK”, according to Dr John Green, the psychologist leading the mental health response to the tragedy. Continue reading...The Guardian
More than half a million adults over 65 and almost 350,000 toddlers could miss out on their flu vaccinations after a failure to meet government targets, Labour has said.
The warning comes amid fears that Britain could be hit by its biggest flu outbreak in years this winter following major outbreaks in Australia and New Zealand. Continue reading...The Guardian
Mr Hunt said the Chancellor had made clear that “if we can have a negotiation and look at some of the ways that we could improve productivity” then he will be “willing to have a discussion” about the possibility of handing over more money.
The Health Secretary announced earlier this month that the public sector pay cap, which has limited increases to one per cent, will be abolished for the NHS. The Daily Telegraph
Imperial College Trust admitted it had breached patient confidentiality after records belonging to Sarah Preece, a patient undergoing gender reassignment surgery, were placed in the wrong file.
Ms Preece only learned of the mistake when another patient wrote to inform her that she had received files containing highly sensitive information, including details of her surgery. The Daily Telegraph
They say the council's planned cuts to libraries, children's services and bus subsidiaries could have a direct impact on health and wellbeing in the county.
It comes after the council announced they would need to find nearly £12million in savings to balance the budget by the end of September 2018. Northampton Chronicle and Echo
The Prime Minister asked us to conduct a review of quality and access across the system of mental health services for children and young people. This report marks the first phase of that review.
The report brings together the insights and experiences of many different people and organisations. It summarises the current state of knowledge, the problems and challenges, and the effect of these problems and challenges on children and young people and their families and carers. Care Quality Commission
Investigation: WannaCry cyber attack and the NHS The WannaCry cyber attack had potentially serious implications for the NHS and its ability to provide care to patients. It was a relatively unsophisticated attack and could have been prevented by the NHS following basic IT security best practice. There are more sophisticated cyber threats out there than WannaCry so the Department and the NHS need to get their act together to ensure the NHS is better protected against future attacks. National Audit Office
That constitutes a 3.3 per cent increase in cash terms and a 1.0 per cent increase in real terms. It is the first time social care expenditure has risen in real terms since 2009/10.
In 2016/17 Local Authorities were able to raise the council tax precept by two percent for the first time in order to fund adult social care. This raised an additional £382 million.
The Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report published by NHS Digital shows that, while expenditure has risen, there has been minimal change in activity, which may be linked to the increasing costs in the provision of care.
Public health: everyone's business? This is the second report in the Provider Voices series. It uses 12 interviews with health leaders from a range of trusts and other parts of the service to help gain a better understanding of NHS providers’ role in shaping and delivering public health and care. NHS Providers
Why it is so difficult to develop new antibiotics Over-reliance on and misuse of antibiotics has led to warnings of a future without effective medicines. Why is it so difficult for scientists to discover new drugs?
It's a tale of scientific discovery taught the world over: the serendipitous find of a mould that revolutionised modern medicine.
Almost 90 years ago, Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to find Penicillium on Petri dishes left in his basement laboratory at St Mary's Hospital in London.
By the 1950s, the golden age of antibiotic discovery, an array of new medicines was being found.
Today, scientists are searching for a new breakthrough, testing microbes in sources as diverse as soil, caves and Komodo dragon blood, as well as developing new, lab-made synthetic drugs. BBC News
The number of children admitted to intensive care in England has risen sharply since 2009, putting additional pressure on already overstretched health services, researchers have warned.
A study of admissions to paediatric intensive care units in England found a nearly 15% increase from 2004 to 2013, with a larger than expected rise against population growth from 2009 onwards. In Wales there was a more than 2% rise over the period studied. Continue reading...The Guardian
It’s official. The government-commissioned Thriving at Work report has found that many of us are not, in fact, thriving at work. About 300,000 of us with long-term mental health problems lose their job each year in the UK. For me, this is news alongside sky is blue; Liverpool FC are perpetually underachieving; David Davis understands the Brexit process as much as he does superstring theory.
There’s a crisis safety net when individuals reach the nadir, and that’s it Continue reading...The Guardian
Diabetes is such a global crisis that it unavoidably brings us together. Over the past two years Houston has been getting to grips with the problem, as one of the first members of a coalition called Cities Changing Diabetes.
On 26 and 27 October, our city is hosting the US’s first global summit on urban diabetes in order to share what we’ve learned. So here are three unexpected things our experience has taught us that could help other cities in their fight. Continue reading...The Guardian
Investigations have found that patients who are losing their sight are waiting up to 15 months for cataract surgery, amid a stark postcode lottery across the health service
Thousands of sufferers are being forced to wait as their eyesight deteriorates, with some going untreated until they are nearly blind. The Daily Telegraph
Experts claim the physical and psychological complications of such atrocities on medical staff who have to deal with the repercussions of the horrific events are 'severe, under-reported, and underappreciated'. The Daily Mail
The Cliftonville entrance to the hospital, off Billing Road, will be closed to all vehicles except ambulances between November 13 and December 11. Northampton Chronicle and Echo
Sustainable primary care provides a platform for system change In the final blog in our series about the transformation of the Canterbury health system in New Zealand, Vince Barry, Chief Executive of Pegasus Health, looks at how building sustainable primary care creates a platform for change. The King's Fund
It includes a detailed analysis that explores the significant cost of poor mental health to UK businesses and the economy as a whole. Poor mental health costs employers between £33 billion and £42 billion a year, with an annual cost to the UK economy of between £74 billion and £99 billion.
The review quantifies how investing in supporting mental health at work is good for business and productivity. The most important recommendation is that all employers, regardless of size or industry, should adopt 6 ‘mental health core standards’ that lay basic foundations for an approach to workplace mental health. It also details how large employers and the public sector can develop these standards further through a set of ‘mental health enhanced standards’. The review also makes a series of recommendations to government and other bodies. Department of Health & Department for Work and Pensions
The non-executive director's guide to NHS data: part one This briefing is the first in a new series of guides to be launched by the NHS Confederation in association with healthcare intelligence provider CHKS. The guides are for non-executive directors (NEDs) and aim to show how data can be used to drive improvement, provide effective oversight and support the transformation of care. The first guide considers data in acute care settings. It will be followed by a further three publications over 2017/18. NHS Confederation
People like us? Understanding complaints about paramedics and social workers This research, carried out by the University of Surrey, sets out to improve understanding of the reasons for the disproportionately high number and nature of complaints to the HCPC about two professions - paramedics from across the UK, and social workers in England. It also considers what preventative action could be taken to address the issues and themes brought out in the report. Health & Care Professions Council
Southend Hospital in Essex said it has no plans to "support the pilot at this time".
The trial by healthcare start-up CareRooms involves 30 hospital patients staying in local residents' spare rooms while waiting to be discharged. BBC News
Patients face 'distressing readmissions' The number of patients in England being readmitted to hospital within 30 days of discharge has risen by nearly a quarter in the last four years, a watchdog has said.
Figures compiled by Healthwatch suggest one in five of these potentially distressing readmissions happen 48 hours after being sent home.
The watchdog warns patients may be being rushed out early.
NHS England says it is impossible to know the reasons for the readmissions.
An emergency readmission occurs when a patient needs to go back into hospital unexpectedly for further treatment, within 30 days of having been discharged.
Readmissions in such a short space of time raise concerns about patients being discharged unsafely, and about the pressure on hospitals to free up beds. BBC News
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has warned a new policy that caps funding for NHS care outside hospital means disabled people may be prevented from living at home with their families despite being well enough to do so.
Out of hospital care, known as continuing healthcare, can be arranged in a care home, nursing home, hospice or a person’s own home. But the EHRC said the new funding caps, which have been rolled out in at least 44 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across the UK, set an upper limit on the provision of care in a person’s home, which for many is not sufficient to meet their care needs. The Independent
Singing and dancing pills are the latest weapon to be pulled out of the NHS’s public health armoury, in a last-ditch battle to beat antibiotic resistance. The animated capsules are featured in Public Health England’s Keep Antibiotics Working campaign, which was unveiled earlier this week, and aims to encourage patients to use fewer antibiotics. Yet like all other attempts to curb the impending antibiotic Armageddon, it will fail. Why? Because it is based on the lazy assumption that patients are to blame.
We should be in a strong position to curb the threat of antimicrobial resistance in the UK, as our comparatively non-interventionist approach to illness (necessitated by having one of the lowest spends per capita on healthcare in the western world) has meant we have a much stronger grip on prescribing than many other places. This is admirable and should be celebrated more than it is, yet this is exactly why a campaign encouraging people to use fewer antibiotics is destined to fail. Patients aren’t the decision-makers here.
Using antibiotics as growth agents has been banned in the EU since 2006, but it isn’t in the US Continue reading...The Guardian
Tuesday 29 November 2011 was the darkest of days. On that day six years ago, my wife and I listened in stunned silence as we were given the news that our 13-year-old daughter, Issy, had a rare bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma.
That was the start of a year of treatment that involved six hospitals, 18 rounds of chemotherapy, numerous blood transfusions, a failed stem cell harvest, an operation to remove her sacrum and an eight-week NHS-funded trip to the US, where she received proton beam therapy. Continue reading...The Guardian
The number of hospital beds taken up by patients with fake disorders has more than trebled in the past decade, according to NHS Digital statistics. Each faker is estimated to cost the NHS between £800 to £900 a day.
Experts believe the problem is driven by 'Dr Google' as people can readily access medical information to fool doctors into believing they are unwell.
Nearly 100 people were treated for Munchausen's syndrome by the NHS between 2015 and 2016, resulting in a cumulative 1,966 days in hospital, figures add. Munchausen's syndrome is a psychological disorder where someone pretends to be ill. The Daily Mail
‘You need a whole system to work for the whole system to work’ Recently, the Fund hosted a visit by leaders of the health system in Canterbury, New Zealand. In this guest blog – the second of three drawing on experiences shared during the visit – David Meates, Chief Executive of the Canterbury District Health Board, explains how organisations within the Canterbury health system have moved from playing the ‘blame game’ to working together to provide the best possible care for the local population. The King's Fund
Towards an effective NHS payment system: eight principles This report sets out eight principles for a future payment system, primarily arguing that clarity of purpose is required to refocus the system’s many objectives. It argues that that now is the ideal time to review the system, with vanguards and STPs already changing the way that care is delivered, while a two-year fixed payment by results tariff offers space for reform. The Health Foundation
Use of resources assessment: a brief guide for acute non-specialist trusts The Use of resources assessment framework aims to improve understanding of how effectively and efficiently NHS providers are using their resources. By the end of 2019, all acute non-specialist trusts will have undergone an assessment. This briefing provides an overview for non-specialist acute trusts on the agenda for the onsite visit and other useful information. NHS Improvement
Hackers breach top plastic surgery clinic A high-profile plastic surgery clinic has said it is "horrified" after hackers allegedly stole data during a cyber-attack.
Paramedics are expected to reach the most serious emergencies - such as cardiac arrests or strokes - within eight minutes.
But our research has revealed that thousands of patients in England have had to endure delays well in excess of that target, with some forced to wait for several hours.
The stress of coming into hospital can take its toll on patients and relatives alike and Jane Flint’s role as a member of the chaplaincy at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust is to offer emotional and spiritual support to patients, visitors and staff. The difference between her and the other 12 chaplains is that she is an atheist. Duties are the same as for the other chaplains bar offering prayers, rituals or a religious perspective. “It was wonderful to have you with me. Just knowing that there was someone available who had similar beliefs to mine and that you were coming to see me or I could ask for a visit made such a difference to the rest of my time in hospital,” wrote a former NHS patient.
Like them, Flint will see non-religious and religious people alike who request her services. The role, says Flint, is about “just being there”, whether to hear people’s life stories, to provide a sounding board, or to bear witness to somebody’s pain. It can be about conducting a service for a miscarried child, or for a person who was all alone in life; it can be to provide company, or to give someone time. Continue reading...The Guardian
The NHS lurches its way through funding crises and organisational dilemmas. It faces the challenge of antibiotic resistance and it must ponder the deeply conflicted question of the uses and abuses of new technology. Its short-term horizon is so thronged with urgent problems that it would be a surprise if anyone had the spare capacity to consider how things could look by the end of the century.
A new social enterprise, Kaleidoscope Health & Care, however, decided it would be useful to try to raise the collective medical gaze into the very long term. Last year it organised a science fiction short story competition and invited writers to consider healthcare in 2100. The winners are announced on Thursday. Continue reading...The Guardian
Start-up company CareRooms is working with trusts and councils in Essex to link up members of the public with patients who have had a minor procedure - such as a knee operation - but who live alone or have no family to help them convalesce.
In return for fees of up to £1,000 a month, hosts are asked to ‘welcome the patient, cook three microwave meals a day, and offer conversation,’ the Health Service Journal (HSJ) has discovered. The Daily Telegraph
One adult was even attacked by the dangerous reptile in a 'residential institution', often used in statistics to define a care home.
The bizarre incidents, normally seen in parts of Africa, Asia and Australia, were released by NHS Digital and formed part of a table of the weirdest hospital admissions. The Daily Mail
