NHS stop smoking services have helped 146,000 people quit long-term. Photograph: Bubbles Photolibrary / AlamyWelcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.
This week started with news that there is a 50% rise in a deadly baby disease the NHS doesn't screen for. The Telegraph explained that Group B streptococcal disease, one of the most severe infections that can strike infants, is the most common infection recorded on death certificates in the first months of life. Figures released by Public Health England show the number of cases increased from around 200 in 2005 to 300 in 2010.
The BBC had this story that a Belfast health trust admitted breaching health and safety laws. The trust admitted failing to ensure the health and safety of employees and failing to protect non-staff on 28 February 2011.
The Guardian reported that cancer patients say targets are put before their care. Satisfaction figures and the experience of patients with different forms of cancer vary enormously between NHS trusts.
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote for Comment is free stating that it's right to worry about security, but sometimes data trawls can be useful. She wrote in response to an article published by the Mail on Sunday that revealed that confidential medical records were for sale at £1:
I rarely praise this government, least of all its health policy, but science minister David Willetts has played a blinder in levering in research money for this. Is there a risk? Yes, some patients may still worry, despite the vigilance of the information commissioner. But every fear has to be weighed against the probable general good.
The Guardian had a story that said the NHS stop smoking services help 146,000 quit long-term. Data suggests that over the last 10 years 145,783 people in England have quit smoking for at least 12 months.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn is being inspected again after it was ordered to improve after failing to meet five key standards, according to the BBC. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that failings at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn were "a real concern".
Pulse ran a story that said the Department of Health is to hand over billions of pounds of underspend to the treasury – almost double the amount it returned to help plug the UK's financial deficit last year.
Meanwhile, HSJ reported that NHS England forecasts a 13% savings plan shortfall.
The Telegraph reported that up to 20 trusts plan to set up lucrative health services in India. NHS patients could be sent to India to be treated it was warned, as it was revealed up to 20 UK trusts were planning to set up clinics abroad to make money for the health service.
And, Pulse revealed that the number of GP trainers rose by more than 20% in nine months The number of approved GP trainers in the UK has risen by 21% in nine months, with more than a thousand more GP trainers approved.
Our colleagues on the Public Leaders Network published a piece by Colin Cram, a public sector consultant specialising in procurement, who wrote that a Department of Health report reveals NHS value for money failures.
David Buck, senior fellow for public health and inequalities at the King's Fund, wrote a blog for the thinktank about the NHS England budget. He said:
The most important thing for NHS England to define was whether resource allocation was simply a fair way to get money from the centre to where it was needed or whether it was a powerful and active policy tool. A lack of clarity on this has always been the Achilles heel of NHS resource allocation; with much of the work locked up in the dusty corridors of the Department of Health's finance department, in isolation from wider policy goals. The refreshing focus on inequalities is welcome, but NHS England has the opportunity to transform resource allocation by aligning the money transparently with its wider policy objectives. In our review of the allocations process, we speculated how resource allocation could be designed to promote wider goals such as a clinically led NHS; an outcomes driven one; or an NHS more integrated and aligned with wider public services.
And, Elaine Inglesby, director of nursing for Salford Royal NHS foundation trust, wrote a blogpost for the Health Foundation in response to the Berwick report. She wrote:
I want to use the momentum of A promise to learn – a commitment to act to get deeper and really understand what patients and staff are telling us about our services and how we can improve safety. In doing so, I am preparing myself and others to welcome the warnings of problems and hear difficult messages about those intractable problems that exist but sometimes we don't want to hear.
I am also paying particular attention to variation in care delivery – why is it that one part of the organisation seems to be able to get things right, while another doesn't? Why do different professional groups have completely different experiences when working on the same ward? These differences will help me understand the bespoke support and interventions the different staff groups, wards and clinics need to improve quality.
Our most read pieces on the network have been:
• Why the NHS needs more graduate nurses
• Why doesn't the NHS know how many patients have had chemotherapy?
• 'Take up the challenge of GP commissioning. The patients need you'
• NHS trusts are not getting the most out of their MRI scanners
• A day in the life of ... a deputy director of offender health
We'll be back with our last roundup of the summer next week. Meanwhile, if there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us.
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