NHS should charge health tourists 'upfront' instead of chaotic debt chase

NHS should charge health tourists 'upfront' instead of chaotic debt chase

NHS hospitals should charge foreign patients “upfront” unless the case is an emergency, the government has said - as a damning report warns Britain is failing to recoup hundreds of millions of pounds.

MPs said “chaotic” systems and a lack of sanctions for hospitals which failed to recover debts meant legitimate patients were being starved of vital resources. The Telegraph

• 'Health tourists': Action urged to recover NHS costs BBC News
• MPs warn health tourism 'chaos' is draining the NHS Daily Mail
• NHS ID scheme could deter eligible patients, say MPs The Guardian

Device could help people with 'locked-in' syndrome

Device could help people with 'locked-in' syndrome To help people with locked-in syndrome to communicate, researchers at the Wyss Centre for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva created a new brain-computer interface. Daily Mail

• Completely 'locked-in' patients can communicate BBC News Health

Treat as one: bridging the gap between mental and physical healthcare in general hospitals

Treat as one: bridging the gap between mental and physical healthcare in general hospitals This report from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death highlights concerns around the lack of progress on integration of physical and mental health care in general hospitals. NHS Networks

Staying put: developing dementia-friendly care and support for people with a learning disability

Staying put: developing dementia-friendly care and support for people with a learning disability A report from several voluntary sector organisations calls for an improvement in the way that the needs of people with learning disabilities and dementia are addressed. NHS Networks

Evidence review on drug misuse treatment

Evidence review on drug misuse treatment  Public Health England (PHE) has published a comprehensive review of the evidence on the drug misuse treatment system in England. NHS Networks

Take care of your elderly mothers and fathers, says Tory minister

Take care of your elderly mothers and fathers, says Tory minister David Mowat speaks out during House of Commons committee session on tackling the care crisis. People have just as much of a duty to look after their elderly parents as they do to care for their own children, a health minister has said.
David Mowat made the comments alongside an admission that the government had no “final answer” on how it was going to cope with the rising costs of social care. Continue reading...  The Guardian

Burning injustice: reducing tobacco-driven harm and inequality

Burning injustice: reducing tobacco-driven harm and inequality The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health (APPGSH) launched this inquiry to review current action on tobacco control in response to concerns that funding is being reduced or not used effectively for work on tobacco control. The report provides evidence-based recommendations to the government, local authorities and the NHS for effective action to further reduce smoking prevalence at a time of austerity. The King's Fund

More patients placed in mixed-sex wards in England

More patients placed in mixed-sex wards in England The number of patients placed in mixed-sex wards in England has risen by almost 70% in the last year.
Statistics from NHS England show 7,163 patients were put in the wards in 2016, up from 4,248 in 2015.
In April 2011, fines were introduced to try to eradicate the problem, leading to a fall from thousands per month to hundreds. The Patients Association said the rise was "concerning" and that the wards should be scrapped. BBC News

NHS health service for GPs opens across England

NHS health service for GPs opens across England GPs seeking help with depression, addiction, stress and other mental health issues can now access support from the GP Health Service, following its launch on Monday 30 January. GP Online

Prison crisis affecting health services for inmates, says GP

Prison crisis affecting health services for inmates, says GP Rising tension and staff shortages in prisons are affecting decisions about how to manage urgent medical care for inmates, a senior prison GP has warned. GP Online

MPs to debate call to remove 1% nurse pay cap

MPs to debate call to remove 1% nurse pay cap MPs will today debate a call for the lifting of the 1% pay cap on public sector workers.
Catherine McKinnell, MP for Newcastle North, will lead the debate, which resulted from a petition started by Royal College of Nursing member Danielle Tiplady and signed by over 100,000 people.
At 4.30pm today members will debate the motion: “That this House has considered e-petition 168127 relating to pay restraint for Agenda for Change NHS staff.” OnMedica

Councils may cut social care provision due to underfunding, LGA says

Councils may cut social care provision due to underfunding, LGA says  Association says some of its 370 councils are struggling to meet legal requirement so badly they could face high court challenge.
Older and vulnerable people could stop receiving vital help to get out of bed, washed and dressed, because the underfunding of social care has become so severe, councils have warned.
Leaders of 370 local authorities in England and Wales fear that some councils are finding it so hard to provide the right level of support they could face a high court legal challenge for breaking the law.Continue reading...  The Guardian

No improvement in heart failure death rates since 1990s

No improvement in heart failure death rates since 1990s Heart failure still kills the same number of middle-aged Britons as it did nearly two decades ago, a new study warned.
While medical advances has slashed the number of Britons dying from cancer, the same has not happened for those suffering from heart failure.
The University of Oxford led study found between 1998 and 2012, survival rates for people aged over 45 with heart failure showed no improvement. The Telegraph

The NHS at mid-winter

The NHS at mid-winter With December and half of January behind us, how is the NHS faring this winter? According to the British Red Cross, the service is facing a ‘humanitarian crisis’, whereas according to the Prime Minister the current situation is ‘not unusual’, with much of the media coverage perhaps closer in tone to the British Red Cross than to the PM.
However, with performance data on A&E now published several weeks after events take place, it is less easy to tell how far undoubted signs of real stress in some trusts are a local issue, or are replicated across the rest of the country. Equally, even where national data is available on the state of the service (mainly through winter situation reports or SitReps) this does not necessarily tell us what has caused any problems and there are, in any case, data quality issues with SitReps that should be taken as a caveat on the numbers presented here. King's Fund

Cancer drugs price rise 'costing NHS millions'

Cancer drugs price rise 'costing NHS millions' Some cancer drugs that are no longer under patent are rising in price when they should be falling. UK prices for generic cancer drugs have risen sharply in the past five years, restricting their use in treating NHS patients, research from the European Cancer Congress has found. Drugs such as tamoxifen and bulsufan are now 10 times more expensive despite no longer being under patent. BBC News

NHS spending per person will be cut next year, ministers confirm

NHS spending per person will be cut next year, ministers confirm The Government will cut the National Health Service’s budget per person in real terms next year, ministers have admitted in official figures for the first time. Numbers released by ministers show NHS England will face a sharp reduction of 0.6 per cent in real terms of per head in the financial year 2018-19.
The numbers corroborate claims by NHS chief Simon Stevens earlier this month that “in 2018-19, real-terms NHS spending per person in England is going to go down”. The figures also fly in the face of the Government’s public insistence that it is investing more in the health service, with Jeremy Hunt and Theresa May repeating the mantra of an extra £10bn for the NHS. The Independent

Ensure GPs fully support hospitals over winter pressures

Ensure GPs fully support hospitals over winter pressures NHS Improvement and NHS England should “ensure that social care and GPs fully support hospitals and ambulance services” in an urgent review of how the NHS manages winter pressures, NHS Providers insisted this morning. It said this review should also consider how the NHS prepared for this winter, whether or not the NHS should have dedicated winter funding, and the impact of staff shortages.
NHS Providers, which represents NHS acute, ambulance, community and mental health services, argued that as the current approach places most of the burden of winter pressures on trusts, they should be given the opportunity to say what has and hasn’t worked, and what must change. It said a review led by NHS Improvement and NHS England, with input from trusts, should be conducted rapidly so that it can be concluded by this April and its findings made public. OnMedica

NHS intensive care 'at its limits' because of staff shortages

NHS intensive care 'at its limits' because of staff shortages  Units are so overwhelmed that life-saving operations are having to be delayed, warn senior doctors.
The NHS’s network of intensive care units is “at its limits” because they are overwhelmed by staff shortages and the sheer number of patients needing life-or-death care, senior doctors are warning in an unprecedented intervention.
Intensive care units (ICUs) are becoming so full that patient safety is increasingly at risk because life-saving operations – including heart, abdominal and neurosurgery – are having to be delayed, the leaders of the specialist doctors who staff the units have told the Guardian.Continue reading... The Guardian

NHS commissioners risk losing sight of human cost of their decisions

NHS commissioners risk losing sight of human cost of their decisions Vulnerable patients are being shunted into care homes to make easy savings.
The revelation that thousands of people could be forced out of their homes into residential care raises serious questions about the judgment of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).
According to the Health Service Journal story, based on information gathered by campaign group Disability United, at least 37 CCGs have imposed restrictions on access to NHS continuing healthcare funding, which provides ongoing care for adults with a “primary health need”. Continue reading...  The Guardian

Quitting EU regulator 'would leave UK waiting longer' for new drugs

Quitting EU regulator 'would leave UK waiting longer' for new drugs Drug firms say leaving EMA could mean Britons having to wait a year longer than EU citizens for newly-developed medicines.
Ministers are coming under growing pressure to scrap plans to quit Europe’s medicines regulator as part of Brexit, with drug firms saying doing so could force Britons to wait a year longer than patients in the EU to access new drugs.
Labour and leaders of the UK’s pharmaceutical industry fear that patients and the NHS will lose out if Britain gives up its membership of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told MPs last week that he did not expect the UK to continue as a member once it left the EU.Continue reading...  The Guardian