This week in healthcare: 19-23 August

NHS stop smoking services have helped 146,000 people quit long-term. Photograph: Bubbles Photolibrary / Alamy

Welcome 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.

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 26-30 August

Bupa is one of the two main private healthcare providers. Photograph: Bupa/PA

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

One of the main healthcare stories this week was that private health groups may have to sell hospitals. The Guardian's social affairs editor, Randeep Ramesh, wrote that the Competition Commission (CC) recommended that Britain's largest private hospital groups sell up to 20 hospitals and end incentive schemes that encourage doctors to send patients to particular private providers in return for cash.

The Telegraph, meanwhile, reported that patients overpay by £200m at private hospitals. More than 100 hospitals clustered around major cities in the UK hold monopolies to the "detriment" of consumers, according to new research by the CC. The report, which has taken a year to compile, has identified the main culprits as HCA, BMI, Spire, Ramsay, and Nuffield. These companies account for 70% of the UK's £5.5bn private healthcare market between them.

And, Alan Maynard, professor of economics at the University of York, said in a piece for Comment is free that the private healthcare market isn't working.

Pricing transparency and the avoidance of excess returns on capital are an essential part of customer protection. However, that has to be complemented with improved transparency in the quality of patient care. This can only be better achieved by integrating patient outcome data, which would enable insurers and the NHS to identify deficient outliers and ensure good quality care. Sadly private sector capitalists and public sector policy makers seem incapable of implementing these essential policies.

At the beginning of the week, the Telegraph reported that a lack of nationwide standards means hospital food is 'worse than prison meals'. The article said a new study revealed the standard of hospital meals varies greatly across the country.

The BBC had this video that showed behind the scenes at the award-winning hospital kitchen at Darlington Memorial hospital.

The data blog at the Guardian asked how much money do hospitals spend on their patients' meals? It illustrated that the high cost of patients' meals doesn't necessarily mean good food.

• The BBC said there was concern at mortality rates at two Lanarkshire hospitals. Health inspectors are to assess patient safety at three Lanarkshire hospitals following concerns about above average mortality rates.

• The Guardian reported that Mid Staffs trust is to be prosecuted over the death of a diabetic patient. The Health and Safety Executive is to bring criminal proceedings over the death of Gillian Astbury, 66, in 2007.

It also had a story that said experts are to examine end-of-life care after the axing of the Liverpool care pathway. The government is to announce the Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People will bring together health and social care groups to improve care for people at the end of their lives.

• Randeep Ramesh wrote that NHS hospital complaints have risen by 1.9%. The NHS is receiving 3,000 patient complaints every week and the total number of complaints was 162,019 in 2012-13 – about 430 a day.

• And the Guardian ran this piece that said better kidney care could save up to 42,000 lives a year. Acute kidney injury costs NHS more than it spends on breast, lung and skin cancer combined.

• Vidhya Alakeson, deputy chief executive at the Resolution Foundation, blogged for the Nuffield Trust about the potential and challenges of personal health budgets. She concluded:

As the roll out of personal health budgets proceeds in the NHS, it will be critical to monitor their take up and to closely track spending to ensure that the potential they offer to personalise care does not cause additional expense for an already cash-strapped NHS.

• Paul Zollinger-Read, chief medical officer at Bupa, wrote for NHS Voices that truly learning from Francis rests on a cultural shift outside of hospitals.

In the future, more people will be accessing healthcare outside of hospital settings – managing long-term conditions at home or receiving healthcare in a nursing home. If we are to truly learn from the Francis report, then the cultural shift must take place outside of hospitals – outside of institutions and buildings, and outside of the public and independent sector.

• Meanwhile, Jane Jones, assistant director of the Health Foundation, listed ten top tips for measuring patient and carer experience. She wrote:

Questions remain about the best ways to assess and, more importantly, act on patient feedback, especially as patients move between different parts of the health service. The understanding of patient experience is so often side-lined as too subjective and divorced from the 'real' clinical work of measuring effectiveness and safety. I believe we still have a long way to go to make this central and critically important to the way we redesign and deliver healthcare services.

Here's a selection of other stories from around the web:

HSJ (subscription): Satisfaction survey 'damages staff morale and alarms patients'
HSJ: Inherited care liability adds to CCG's financial woes
GP Online: Can US health models fit the NHS?
Pulse: Patient experience scores may be included in GP ratings, says NHS England chief
The Independent: Charging foreigners would damage NHS, doctors say
BBC: Prof Steve Field named chief inspector of GPs

Our most read pieces on the network have been:

• Working time directive hinders junior doctors' progress
• Mental health care overlooked by NHS review of emergency services
• GPs continue to do battle with government over telehealth
• KPMG report urges radical new look at long-term care
• Five minutes with ... a director of strategy and policy

We'll be back with our daily live blog on Monday. Meanwhile, if there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us.

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 12-16 August

Whipps Cross University hospital in Walthamstow, east London. Photograph: Katie Collins/PA

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

The news that the Care Quality Commission has uncovered "a catalogue of failings" at Whipps Cross University hospital in east London was widely reported this week. The failings were found during two unannounced inspections in May and June and included uncaring staff, blood-stained equipment, poor hygiene standards, patients not being helped to eat and a high mortality rate, wrote the Guardian's Denis Campbell.

Roy Lilley picked up on the story in his NHS Managers blog. He wrote:

The Whipps Cross CQC report was horribly familiar. It could have been cut and pasted from the Francis Report on Mid-Staffs ... The toxic cocktail of shortage of money and a scramble to try and balance the books to become an FT is what scuppered Mid-Staffs. It was an identical story at Bart's.

Meanwhile, writing for the Nuffield Trust blog, Emma Churchill said the CQC's plan to launch its new inspection regime in acute trusts first will not be an easy task:

An aggregate rating could hide pockets of poor performance within an organisation as trusts are large and complex institutions. Instead, the goal for hospitals should be to introduce ratings that drill down to a departmental or service level.

Also hitting the headlines this week was the news that the number of patients waiting for hospital treatment is at a five-year high, with almost 2.9 million people on the list. Writing for the Guardian, Rowena Mason said Monitor has warned that some hospitals are having to cancel non-urgent operations or other treatment "to deal with increased A&E and non-elective pressures".

In other news, Sarah Bosely reported that surgeons, dentists, midwives and other healthcare workers who have HIV are to be allowed to perform all kinds of procedures on patients, following the lifting of an outdated ban. In a Guardian video, England's chief medical officer, Sally Davies, said the old rules are outdated as those receiving proper treatment are not infectious:

As part of the raft of reforms to the UK's HIV policy, home-testing kits that allow people to test themselves for HIV will be legal in the UK from next spring, writes the Independent.

Meanwhile Zara Aziz, a GP partner, argued that charging for GP appointments will cost the NHS more in the long run. She warned:

There is a significant danger that cost would deter the most vulnerable people from attending, especially early on in their illness when medical interventions could be more successful. Current levels of demand are not sustainable, but the "knee-jerk" response of introducing charges is not the answer. Past and present health campaigns (such as to detect early signs of cancer or stroke) have been very successful and must be extended more widely to encourage self-help measures for minor illnesses. This can significantly free up NHS time.

And in a piece for Comment is free Sarah Wollaston, Conservative MP for Totnes and a former GP, said community treatment orders are not helping people with mental illness. She argued that the use of compulsory detention in hospital has not dropped as expected, and the Department of Health needs to find out why.

• An editorial in the Lancet said the NHS is being treated like a "failing bank" by ministers. In an issue published on Friday, it said: "One might be forgiven for thinking that the current coalition government views the NHS as a failing bank or business." The Telegraph reported that high-performing NHS trust chief executives could be promoted to become "superheads" to turn round failing hospitals, under new government plans.

• Writing for the BBC, Johnny Marshall, NHS Confederation director of policy, asked: Is reality TV a help or a hindrance to the NHS?

Is there too much fixation on the hospital model, the wonder services and miracle drugs breaking new barriers, and not enough on the care outside hospitals that provides just as essential a purpose?

• Angela McNab, chief executive of Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care partnership trust, said treating people with compassion is a by-product of organisational cohesiveness.

• And writing for the King's Fund blog, Belinda Weir pondered the unlikely question: why is an NHS leader like a stand-up comedian?

Here's a run through of the rest of the week's healthcare news and views:

Guardian: Breastfeeding for six months can delay breast cancer onset by a decade
Guardian: Teenage drinking raises risk of early dementia, study suggests
BBC: Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS trust boss gets £25k rise
BBC: Did the London Olympics boost the nation's health?
Telegraph: Wales is prescription capital of Britain
Telegraph: Elderly people with dementia put at risk, say MPs
Telegraph: Ombudsman: Patients suffer from a 'toxic cocktail' in NHS
Independent: Charity boss lobbied Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over NHS privatisation, documents show
Independent: GP practices and hospital to host internet training sessions for NHS patients
Pulse: Practices facing unsustainable pressure as hospitals 'dump' work on GPs, survey finds
GP Online: NHS England launches future of general practice consultation
GP Online: Invest in primary care to tackle A&E pressure, BMA urges

Here's a roundup of the most read pieces on the Healthcare Professionals Network:

Five minutes with ... the nurse turned chair of PJ Care Ltd
Why we're heading for a global healthcare crunch – and how to avoid it
New doctors need more support as they begin their careers, survey finds
Hospital charities fight to raise funds as giving slows in austerity Britain
'We should not miss the opportunity for change within the NHS'
Why healthcare managers welcome the Berwick report

If there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us @GdnHealthcare

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 19-23 August

NHS stop smoking services have helped 146,000 people quit long-term. Photograph: Bubbles Photolibrary / Alamy

Welcome 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.

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 5-9 August

Struggling A&E departments are to be given a £500m bailout to help relieve pressure in the coming months. Photograph: Getty Images

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

The big healthcare story this week was the final publication of a review of patient safety in the NHS by acclaimed US expert Don Berwick. It was expected to recommend legal duty for doctors, nurses and other health workers to admit mistakes.

When released, it said that the system was to blame for NHS mistakes, not staff. As the Guardian reported, the review said:

Even while leaders speak out clearly and with courage, as they should when things go wrong, it is helpful to avoid drama, accusation and overstatement either in the Mid Staffordshire case or in other lapses in patient safety. No single person, party or administration caused the problems that need to be solved and everyone can help guide the next steps if they work together.

The Telegraph reported that NHS staff could be prosecuted for "reckless neglect" of patients. The review called for a new criminal offence to be created, so that those who deliberately or carelessly inflict patient harm could be punished. It has also said new national guidance on safe staffing levels should be drawn up by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which all hospitals should follow.

In a video interview for the Guardian, Berwick said that NHS bosses should focus on listening and transparency:

Link to video: Berwick report: NHS bosses should focus on listening and transparency

The BBC ran a video of Jeremy Hunt responding to the review findings.

Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley reported that Berwick had called for the NHS blame game to end, with leaders fostering a more positive working culture.

A Guardian editorial on the report labelled the NHS a "fine institution":

If incentivising by praising what's good is as important as Professor Berwick believes, then his report should transform the health service in England. But he has disappointed the government by dismissing zero-harm as an achievable objective, and he has disappointed campaigners by providing no shiny new levers to translate his ambition. There's to be no reform by statute but instead change through leadership, candour and transparency. He suggests only the most sparing use of the law, which should be reserved for the most extreme examples of calculated neglect, something he plainly believes is rarely found in an organisation that he cherishes as "a world-leading example of commitment to health and healthcare as a human right".

Boseley claimed that there was a tough stance on regulation amid the Berwick review's goodwill proposal.

On one issue he is prepared to be tough, believing regulation in the NHS is a mess. Personally he would like an immediate inquiry with a view to forcing the CQC, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority to work together or even turn into a single body. His committee, perhaps conscious of recent CQC turmoil and demoralisation, says it should happen in 2017, or sooner if they do not start collaborating. That puts the government on the spot, as does his insistence that leaders (including ministers) must not blame NHS staff for mistakes. If there should be another Mid Staffs, who now will take the rap?

BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle, meanwhile, asked: How many reviews does the NHS need? He wrote:

After the flurry of reports and recommendations of recent months, the NHS will be after some clear direction from ministers once their holidays are over and Parliament resumes in September.

Sarah Wollaston, a former GP and now Conservative MP for Totnes, wrote for the Telegraph explaining why a culture of fear and blame won't fix the NHS. She said the best way to improve safety in the health service is to make the staff proud of what they do.

• In other news this week, A&E departments are to be given a £500m bailout in a bid to avert crisis. The BBC reported that the bailout was only 'papering cracks'. Roy Lilley wrote for Guardian Comment is Free asking: What will the A&E injection really be spent on? He believes much of the £500m given to the NHS to fend off another winter crisis will probably go on agency and locum fees and social care:

Despite the hype, the criticisms and some self-inflicted stupidities, hospitals are run by experienced, thoughtful people who will do their best to make sure we don't have another winter like the last one. My guess is, whatever the weather, it will still be hot in A&E.

• In the Telegraph, Andrew Lawson claimed: "If I'd relied solely on the NHS to treat me, I might well be dead". He believes that the NHS was unable manage his cancer properly. Dan Poulter, parliamentary under secretary of state for health, argued that the NHS needs a "Bargain Hunt approach" to procurement, saving money on everything from surgical gloves to hip replacements.

• Peter Wilby, former editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman, wrote for Guardian Comment is Free on the risk that the NHS will fail so long as we consider healthcare a market. He said the health service is saddled with impossible expectations; when it doesn't meet them, yet more 'reform' is prescribed:

The first duty of the NHS is to make patients well – or, at least, less sick – not to pander to "consumer preferences". Almost all would settle for that, just as most parents would sacrifice school choice for a decent school in their neighbourhood. The miracle is that Berwick's report can conclude that the NHS is not "unsound in its core". The vast majority of staff, clinical and non-clinical, are dedicated to helping their patients, he says.

• In the Health Service Journal, Don Redding, director of policy at National Voices, asked whether patient rights have any meaning today?

• Michael Dixon, chair of the NHS Alliance, featured on a King's Fund video discussing the value of volunteering in health and social care.

• Health secretary Jeremy Hunt blogged for Conservative Home, stating that "nothing should matter more than patient safety in the NHS". He wrote:

For too long, patient safety has been a secondary concern in parts of the NHS and this has to change. Every patient should have confidence that their care will be safe. Every member of NHS staff should feel supported to make safe, high quality care the priority. This government will make the NHS the world leader in patient safety which our patients deserve.

• On the Health Care Blog, Richard Gunderman tracked the "rise of the hospitalists" – physicians who only care for hospitalised patients - in the US. Could this trend be mirrored here in the UK?

Here's a run through of the rest of the week's healthcare news and views:

• The Guardian: Hospital needless deaths figure 'misleading'
• Chris Hopson: the NHS could keel over in 2016
• I'm an NHS boss … get me to the frontline
• The Telegraph: How Jeremy Hunt is following head boy Michael Gove's lead
• HSJ: Berwick chief: review critics 'miss the point'
• Pulse: Private companies set for access to patient data for just £1
• GP Online: GPs in CCGs investigate A&Es for first time over patient safety fears
• The Independent: Fit to work? Concern over contract paramedics sleeping in tents between shifts
• BBC: NHS gets own price comparison website

Here's a round up of the most read pieces on the Healthcare Professionals Network:

• Gap in perinatal mental health services needs urgent attention
• 'You'll always make mistakes ... it's about correcting them before they become really big'
• Dementia-friendly communities can improve care and save money
• 'Too much reassurance is dangerous for the NHS'

If there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us @GdnHealthcare

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 12-16 August

Whipps Cross University hospital in Walthamstow, east London. Photograph: Katie Collins/PA

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

The news that the Care Quality Commission has uncovered "a catalogue of failings" at Whipps Cross University hospital in east London was widely reported this week. The failings were found during two unannounced inspections in May and June and included uncaring staff, blood-stained equipment, poor hygiene standards, patients not being helped to eat and a high mortality rate, wrote the Guardian's Denis Campbell.

Roy Lilley picked up on the story in his NHS Managers blog. He wrote:

The Whipps Cross CQC report was horribly familiar. It could have been cut and pasted from the Francis Report on Mid-Staffs ... The toxic cocktail of shortage of money and a scramble to try and balance the books to become an FT is what scuppered Mid-Staffs. It was an identical story at Bart's.

Meanwhile, writing for the Nuffield Trust blog, Emma Churchill said the CQC's plan to launch its new inspection regime in acute trusts first will not be an easy task:

An aggregate rating could hide pockets of poor performance within an organisation as trusts are large and complex institutions. Instead, the goal for hospitals should be to introduce ratings that drill down to a departmental or service level.

Also hitting the headlines this week was the news that the number of patients waiting for hospital treatment is at a five-year high, with almost 2.9 million people on the list. Writing for the Guardian, Rowena Mason said Monitor has warned that some hospitals are having to cancel non-urgent operations or other treatment "to deal with increased A&E and non-elective pressures".

In other news, Sarah Bosely reported that surgeons, dentists, midwives and other healthcare workers who have HIV are to be allowed to perform all kinds of procedures on patients, following the lifting of an outdated ban. In a Guardian video, England's chief medical officer, Sally Davies, said the old rules are outdated as those receiving proper treatment are not infectious:

As part of the raft of reforms to the UK's HIV policy, home-testing kits that allow people to test themselves for HIV will be legal in the UK from next spring, writes the Independent.

Meanwhile Zara Aziz, a GP partner, argued that charging for GP appointments will cost the NHS more in the long run. She warned:

There is a significant danger that cost would deter the most vulnerable people from attending, especially early on in their illness when medical interventions could be more successful. Current levels of demand are not sustainable, but the "knee-jerk" response of introducing charges is not the answer. Past and present health campaigns (such as to detect early signs of cancer or stroke) have been very successful and must be extended more widely to encourage self-help measures for minor illnesses. This can significantly free up NHS time.

And in a piece for Comment is free Sarah Wollaston, Conservative MP for Totnes and a former GP, said community treatment orders are not helping people with mental illness. She argued that the use of compulsory detention in hospital has not dropped as expected, and the Department of Health needs to find out why.

• An editorial in the Lancet said the NHS is being treated like a "failing bank" by ministers. In an issue published on Friday, it said: "One might be forgiven for thinking that the current coalition government views the NHS as a failing bank or business." The Telegraph reported that high-performing NHS trust chief executives could be promoted to become "superheads" to turn round failing hospitals, under new government plans.

• Writing for the BBC, Johnny Marshall, NHS Confederation director of policy, asked: Is reality TV a help or a hindrance to the NHS?

Is there too much fixation on the hospital model, the wonder services and miracle drugs breaking new barriers, and not enough on the care outside hospitals that provides just as essential a purpose?

• Angela McNab, chief executive of Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care partnership trust, said treating people with compassion is a by-product of organisational cohesiveness.

• And writing for the King's Fund blog, Belinda Weir pondered the unlikely question: why is an NHS leader like a stand-up comedian?

Here's a run through of the rest of the week's healthcare news and views:

Guardian: Breastfeeding for six months can delay breast cancer onset by a decade
Guardian: Teenage drinking raises risk of early dementia, study suggests
BBC: Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS trust boss gets £25k rise
BBC: Did the London Olympics boost the nation's health?
Telegraph: Wales is prescription capital of Britain
Telegraph: Elderly people with dementia put at risk, say MPs
Telegraph: Ombudsman: Patients suffer from a 'toxic cocktail' in NHS
Independent: Charity boss lobbied Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over NHS privatisation, documents show
Independent: GP practices and hospital to host internet training sessions for NHS patients
Pulse: Practices facing unsustainable pressure as hospitals 'dump' work on GPs, survey finds
GP Online: NHS England launches future of general practice consultation
GP Online: Invest in primary care to tackle A&E pressure, BMA urges

Here's a roundup of the most read pieces on the Healthcare Professionals Network:

Five minutes with ... the nurse turned chair of PJ Care Ltd
Why we're heading for a global healthcare crunch – and how to avoid it
New doctors need more support as they begin their careers, survey finds
Hospital charities fight to raise funds as giving slows in austerity Britain
'We should not miss the opportunity for change within the NHS'
Why healthcare managers welcome the Berwick report

If there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us @GdnHealthcare

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 12-16 August

Whipps Cross University hospital in Walthamstow, east London. Photograph: Katie Collins/PA

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

The news that the Care Quality Commission has uncovered "a catalogue of failings" at Whipps Cross University hospital in east London was widely reported this week. The failings were found during two unannounced inspections in May and June and included uncaring staff, blood-stained equipment, poor hygiene standards, patients not being helped to eat and a high mortality rate, wrote the Guardian's Denis Campbell.

Roy Lilley picked up on the story in his NHS Managers blog. He wrote:

The Whipps Cross CQC report was horribly familiar. It could have been cut and pasted from the Francis Report on Mid-Staffs ... The toxic cocktail of shortage of money and a scramble to try and balance the books to become an FT is what scuppered Mid-Staffs. It was an identical story at Bart's.

Meanwhile, writing for the Nuffield Trust blog, Emma Churchill said the CQC's plan to launch its new inspection regime in acute trusts first will not be an easy task:

An aggregate rating could hide pockets of poor performance within an organisation as trusts are large and complex institutions. Instead, the goal for hospitals should be to introduce ratings that drill down to a departmental or service level.

Also hitting the headlines this week was the news that the number of patients waiting for hospital treatment is at a five-year high, with almost 2.9 million people on the list. Writing for the Guardian, Rowena Mason said Monitor has warned that some hospitals are having to cancel non-urgent operations or other treatment "to deal with increased A&E and non-elective pressures".

In other news, Sarah Bosely reported that surgeons, dentists, midwives and other healthcare workers who have HIV are to be allowed to perform all kinds of procedures on patients, following the lifting of an outdated ban. In a Guardian video, England's chief medical officer, Sally Davies, said the old rules are outdated as those receiving proper treatment are not infectious:

As part of the raft of reforms to the UK's HIV policy, home-testing kits that allow people to test themselves for HIV will be legal in the UK from next spring, writes the Independent.

Meanwhile Zara Aziz, a GP partner, argued that charging for GP appointments will cost the NHS more in the long run. She warned:

There is a significant danger that cost would deter the most vulnerable people from attending, especially early on in their illness when medical interventions could be more successful. Current levels of demand are not sustainable, but the "knee-jerk" response of introducing charges is not the answer. Past and present health campaigns (such as to detect early signs of cancer or stroke) have been very successful and must be extended more widely to encourage self-help measures for minor illnesses. This can significantly free up NHS time.

And in a piece for Comment is free Sarah Wollaston, Conservative MP for Totnes and a former GP, said community treatment orders are not helping people with mental illness. She argued that the use of compulsory detention in hospital has not dropped as expected, and the Department of Health needs to find out why.

• An editorial in the Lancet said the NHS is being treated like a "failing bank" by ministers. In an issue published on Friday, it said: "One might be forgiven for thinking that the current coalition government views the NHS as a failing bank or business." The Telegraph reported that high-performing NHS trust chief executives could be promoted to become "superheads" to turn round failing hospitals, under new government plans.

• Writing for the BBC, Johnny Marshall, NHS Confederation director of policy, asked: Is reality TV a help or a hindrance to the NHS?

Is there too much fixation on the hospital model, the wonder services and miracle drugs breaking new barriers, and not enough on the care outside hospitals that provides just as essential a purpose?

• Angela McNab, chief executive of Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care partnership trust, said treating people with compassion is a by-product of organisational cohesiveness.

• And writing for the King's Fund blog, Belinda Weir pondered the unlikely question: why is an NHS leader like a stand-up comedian?

Here's a run through of the rest of the week's healthcare news and views:

Guardian: Breastfeeding for six months can delay breast cancer onset by a decade
Guardian: Teenage drinking raises risk of early dementia, study suggests
BBC: Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS trust boss gets £25k rise
BBC: Did the London Olympics boost the nation's health?
Telegraph: Wales is prescription capital of Britain
Telegraph: Elderly people with dementia put at risk, say MPs
Telegraph: Ombudsman: Patients suffer from a 'toxic cocktail' in NHS
Independent: Charity boss lobbied Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over NHS privatisation, documents show
Independent: GP practices and hospital to host internet training sessions for NHS patients
Pulse: Practices facing unsustainable pressure as hospitals 'dump' work on GPs, survey finds
GP Online: NHS England launches future of general practice consultation
GP Online: Invest in primary care to tackle A&E pressure, BMA urges

Here's a roundup of the most read pieces on the Healthcare Professionals Network:

Five minutes with ... the nurse turned chair of PJ Care Ltd
Why we're heading for a global healthcare crunch – and how to avoid it
New doctors need more support as they begin their careers, survey finds
Hospital charities fight to raise funds as giving slows in austerity Britain
'We should not miss the opportunity for change within the NHS'
Why healthcare managers welcome the Berwick report

If there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us @GdnHealthcare

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 29 July-2 August

NHS Direct ran the predecessor service to the 111 helpline before it was broken up and put out to tender. Photograph: Alamy

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

This week started with claims that the NHS 111 non-emergency helpline is failing patients. An investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches revealed concerns about staff shortages, poor training and unnecessary ambulance callouts.

The Guardian explained the helpline and listed the problems it faced as it emerged that NHS Direct, the biggest single provider of NHS 111, announced it wanted to pull out of its contracts to provide the service.

Meanwhile, this video shows Dame Barbara Hakin from NHS England admitting that the 111 helpline has failed patients. Criticising NHS Direct, which withdrew from providing services, she said: "I would not deny that in March and April patients were getting a really poor service." She said other providers will take over.

Link to video: NHS Direct not up to standard for 111, says Hakin

The Telegraph catalogued the failings which blighted the non-emergency number, while the Guardian's data blog looked at the evidence on what happened next to callers.

The paper also reported that NHS Direct's withdrawal has left the 111 helpline on life support amid fears that chaos will lead to "tragic consequences for patients".

Michele Hanson wrote for the Guardian that "the health service's non-emergency helpline has never been much help to the people I know who've called it". She wrote:

NHS Direct wants to withdraw from its "financially unsustainable" contracts to run NHS 111, the service for urgent-but-not-urgent-enough-for-999 health concerns. About time too. It promises to "provide a safe and reliable … service until alternative arrangements can be made". How? It hasn't managed so far.

And, Felicity Lawrence wrote that critics said the 111 helpline has a fundamental flaw. She wrote that any money saved in using lay call handlers is simply added to the bill in more expensive care elsewhere. She wrote:

Critics believe it is built on a fundamental flaw. Instead of using expensive nurses and GPs to assess patients, lay call handlers, who are cheaper, follow a script of questions that leads them to a decision about where to send the caller. handlers have no clinical experience, the system has to default to the least risky option – which means sending people to A&E or calling an ambulance if there is any doubt. Any money saved is simply added to the bill in more expensive care elsewhere.

The Telegraph also ran an editorial saying that the NHS cannot go back – it must reform. It said that the basic idea of the 111 service – of remote triage to ease the pressure on A&E departments – is a good one but it was introduced in haste.

And, Dr Kailash Chand wrote for the Manchester Evening News that the 111 debacle must never happen again. He said that the past few days have shown that the implementation of NHS 111 has been an abysmal failure.

The Daily Mail reported that Sir Bruce Keogh told the NHS to adopt the attitude of high street giants like Dixons or PC World if it wants to survive. He said the health service had to accept a "more-for-less" philosophy and ditch the "inbuilt mindset that better quality costs more".

Melissa Kite wrote for Comment is free saying we won't need a PC World NHS if more of us go private. She said that those who can should unburden the health service, so it can act as the good, basic provider that Beveridge intended.

Perhaps we should ask how the founders of the NHS would respond to the fact that the service has deteriorated to a point where making it "more like PC World" seems, to its current director, a reasonable ambition. Certainly, the original aims of the Beveridge report make fascinating reading in the current context of a worsening service under increasing strain.
Sir William Beveridge said that: "The state, in organising security, should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family." Specifically, he felt that state provision should not take the burden off personal insurance.
In other words, you could argue that those of us who pay for private medical care are the ones being true to the original aims of Beveridge, while those who say we are undermining the NHS by "running it down", are the ones who are missing the point. Those who aspire to instant, tailor-made or niche medical services – the ultimate in consumer care – should be congratulated for paying for them and taking the weight off the state system.

Kailash Chand wrote for the network responding to Keogh's comments. He argued that healthcare cannot be sold like an iPad. He wrote that it is time to reject the market ideology that has plagued the NHS for more than 30 years and wasted billions.

There are no evidence-based examples of successful healthcare relying on the principles of the free market. People, like Sir Bruce, who say that the market is the answer to achieving better outcomes for health are flying in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence.

The Guardian reported that Jeremy Hunt's plan to reduce A&E and maternity services at London hospital was overturned at high court.

Sarah Boseley wrote for the paper that Stafford and Lewisham had been reprieved, but that more NHS closures are inevitable. She said to expect further bloodshed as A&E reorganisation leads to departments being replaced with low-key urgent care centres. She wrote:

Reorganisation of NHS care is essential and becoming more urgent as the population ages and the costs of caring for all of us rise. Where it has been allowed, it has been incredibly successful. Stroke patients are rushed past their local hospital these days to one further away with a specialist stroke unit. The same happens with trauma patients. Lives are saved as a result.

And Colin Leys wrote for Comment is free that we all would have suffered from Lewisham hospital cuts. He said that Jeremy Hunt's unlawful decision to close hospital services was commercially driven. The government must rethink its PFI policy.

The Guardian ran a story that said thirty-six NHS wards failed the 'friends and family' test. The Telegraph said the test was 'at best meaningless' at worst misleading" as critics warned the system is "open to gaming".

And, the Guardian ran an editorial about NHS privatisation. It said that coalition ministers justify privatisation as a response to failure, but over-ambitious bids have led to under-fulfilled contracts.

Meanwhile, the Nuffield Trust put together a package of content on the state of the NHS at 65. The resources in this update provide commentary and analysis from leaders, including Stephen Dorrell, Alan Milburn, Clare Gerada and Tim Kelsey, on how they think the NHS should respond to the challenges that lie ahead.

Here's a run through some of the other healthcare stories from around the web this week:

• BBC: 'Boarding' increases hospital stays and spreads infections, researchers say
• BBC: Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust 'should be dissolved'
• Telegraph: Hospital doctors should wear airline-style uniforms to make them easily identifiable
• Telegraph: Dozens of NHS hospitals allow 'no-win, no-fee' firms to advertise
• Pulse: GPs begin legal battle to force reversal of CQC closure notices
• HSJ (subscription): Trust teams up with Capita and Circle in £1bn contract bid
• HSJ (subscription): NHS England chief executive job description
• Independent: NHS helpline has 3,000-strong backlog of complaints about GPs and dentists
• Independent: Privately-run hospital taken over by NHS after patient deaths following routine surgery

Our most read pieces on the network this week have been:

• Dr Na'eem Ahmed wrote that "we should listen to our frontline staff - they know the patients". He said the Keogh review highlighted that frontline healthcare staff have the most interaction with a patient.
• Ray Johannssen-Chapman advised on how to improve patient engagement in mental health and said that service users have a valuable contribution to make to service development and training.
• Pam Lewis explained how charities can become serious players in the NHS. She wrote that now patients can choose 'any qualified provider', a range of organisations can compete in a new market.
• Five top tips on nurturing innovation put together by Dr Peter Thomond, co-founder and managing director of Clever Together, an organisation that helps leaders empower people using crowdsourcing

We'll bring you a roundup every Friday over the summer, but if there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us @GdnHealthcare.

View the original article here

This week in healthcare: 5-9 August

Struggling A&E departments are to be given a £500m bailout to help relieve pressure in the coming months. Photograph: Getty Images

Welcome to our weekly roundup of healthcare news from around the web.

The big healthcare story this week was the final publication of a review of patient safety in the NHS by acclaimed US expert Don Berwick. It was expected to recommend legal duty for doctors, nurses and other health workers to admit mistakes.

When released, it said that the system was to blame for NHS mistakes, not staff. As the Guardian reported, the review said:

Even while leaders speak out clearly and with courage, as they should when things go wrong, it is helpful to avoid drama, accusation and overstatement either in the Mid Staffordshire case or in other lapses in patient safety. No single person, party or administration caused the problems that need to be solved and everyone can help guide the next steps if they work together.

The Telegraph reported that NHS staff could be prosecuted for "reckless neglect" of patients. The review called for a new criminal offence to be created, so that those who deliberately or carelessly inflict patient harm could be punished. It has also said new national guidance on safe staffing levels should be drawn up by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which all hospitals should follow.

In a video interview for the Guardian, Berwick said that NHS bosses should focus on listening and transparency:

Link to video: Berwick report: NHS bosses should focus on listening and transparency

The BBC ran a video of Jeremy Hunt responding to the review findings.

Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley reported that Berwick had called for the NHS blame game to end, with leaders fostering a more positive working culture.

A Guardian editorial on the report labelled the NHS a "fine institution":

If incentivising by praising what's good is as important as Professor Berwick believes, then his report should transform the health service in England. But he has disappointed the government by dismissing zero-harm as an achievable objective, and he has disappointed campaigners by providing no shiny new levers to translate his ambition. There's to be no reform by statute but instead change through leadership, candour and transparency. He suggests only the most sparing use of the law, which should be reserved for the most extreme examples of calculated neglect, something he plainly believes is rarely found in an organisation that he cherishes as "a world-leading example of commitment to health and healthcare as a human right".

Boseley claimed that there was a tough stance on regulation amid the Berwick review's goodwill proposal.

On one issue he is prepared to be tough, believing regulation in the NHS is a mess. Personally he would like an immediate inquiry with a view to forcing the CQC, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority to work together or even turn into a single body. His committee, perhaps conscious of recent CQC turmoil and demoralisation, says it should happen in 2017, or sooner if they do not start collaborating. That puts the government on the spot, as does his insistence that leaders (including ministers) must not blame NHS staff for mistakes. If there should be another Mid Staffs, who now will take the rap?

BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle, meanwhile, asked: How many reviews does the NHS need? He wrote:

After the flurry of reports and recommendations of recent months, the NHS will be after some clear direction from ministers once their holidays are over and Parliament resumes in September.

Sarah Wollaston, a former GP and now Conservative MP for Totnes, wrote for the Telegraph explaining why a culture of fear and blame won't fix the NHS. She said the best way to improve safety in the health service is to make the staff proud of what they do.

• In other news this week, A&E departments are to be given a £500m bailout in a bid to avert crisis. The BBC reported that the bailout was only 'papering cracks'. Roy Lilley wrote for Guardian Comment is Free asking: What will the A&E injection really be spent on? He believes much of the £500m given to the NHS to fend off another winter crisis will probably go on agency and locum fees and social care:

Despite the hype, the criticisms and some self-inflicted stupidities, hospitals are run by experienced, thoughtful people who will do their best to make sure we don't have another winter like the last one. My guess is, whatever the weather, it will still be hot in A&E.

• In the Telegraph, Andrew Lawson claimed: "If I'd relied solely on the NHS to treat me, I might well be dead". He believes that the NHS was unable manage his cancer properly. Dan Poulter, parliamentary under secretary of state for health, argued that the NHS needs a "Bargain Hunt approach" to procurement, saving money on everything from surgical gloves to hip replacements.

• Peter Wilby, former editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman, wrote for Guardian Comment is Free on the risk that the NHS will fail so long as we consider healthcare a market. He said the health service is saddled with impossible expectations; when it doesn't meet them, yet more 'reform' is prescribed:

The first duty of the NHS is to make patients well – or, at least, less sick – not to pander to "consumer preferences". Almost all would settle for that, just as most parents would sacrifice school choice for a decent school in their neighbourhood. The miracle is that Berwick's report can conclude that the NHS is not "unsound in its core". The vast majority of staff, clinical and non-clinical, are dedicated to helping their patients, he says.

• In the Health Service Journal, Don Redding, director of policy at National Voices, asked whether patient rights have any meaning today?

• Michael Dixon, chair of the NHS Alliance, featured on a King's Fund video discussing the value of volunteering in health and social care.

• Health secretary Jeremy Hunt blogged for Conservative Home, stating that "nothing should matter more than patient safety in the NHS". He wrote:

For too long, patient safety has been a secondary concern in parts of the NHS and this has to change. Every patient should have confidence that their care will be safe. Every member of NHS staff should feel supported to make safe, high quality care the priority. This government will make the NHS the world leader in patient safety which our patients deserve.

• On the Health Care Blog, Richard Gunderman tracked the "rise of the hospitalists" – physicians who only care for hospitalised patients - in the US. Could this trend be mirrored here in the UK?

Here's a run through of the rest of the week's healthcare news and views:

• The Guardian: Hospital needless deaths figure 'misleading'
• Chris Hopson: the NHS could keel over in 2016
• I'm an NHS boss … get me to the frontline
• The Telegraph: How Jeremy Hunt is following head boy Michael Gove's lead
• HSJ: Berwick chief: review critics 'miss the point'
• Pulse: Private companies set for access to patient data for just £1
• GP Online: GPs in CCGs investigate A&Es for first time over patient safety fears
• The Independent: Fit to work? Concern over contract paramedics sleeping in tents between shifts
• BBC: NHS gets own price comparison website

Here's a round up of the most read pieces on the Healthcare Professionals Network:

• Gap in perinatal mental health services needs urgent attention
• 'You'll always make mistakes ... it's about correcting them before they become really big'
• Dementia-friendly communities can improve care and save money
• 'Too much reassurance is dangerous for the NHS'

If there's something you particularly enjoyed reading this week, please add a comment below or tweet us @GdnHealthcare

View the original article here

Free Rich and Creamy Melt Organic on August 15th

Mobile Find Friends Badges People Pages Places Apps Games Music About Create Ad Create Page Developers Careers Privacy Cookies Terms Help

View the original article here