Andy Burnham wants it to be free at the point of need, he tells local authority chief executives
5.32pm: HSJ, in association with Interserve, is hosting Redesigning pathways, redefining your estate, a webinar in which we will explore how estates and facilities management can best support patient pathway redesign and how the NHS can make the best use of estates. Join us and hear what our expert speakers have to say. It’s on Wednesday, 23 October at 12.30pm.
5.05pm: A Warwickshire gang that attempted to defraud NHS trusts by invoicing them for adverts in non-existent publications has been jailed for a total of 18 and a half years following an investigation by Warwickshire Police and NHS Protect. Dean Haer, 28, Momonu Ajibade, 31, Lee McColl, 27, Warwick Kirkwood, 29, and Sharon Downes, 35 - all of Leamington Spa - were found guilty at Birmingham Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud. Kulbinder Rai (34) will be sentenced at a later date. The gang attempted to defraud public bodies of £1.8m, of which £478,000 was attempted fraud against the NHS.
3.30pm: Our public institutions have taken a battering in the “transparency age”, with one scandal after another: so how do we heal them, if at all, asks Robin Walsh in the run-up to the Battle of Ideas festival in London. Read his opinion piece here and check out the website for the festival (of which HSJ is media partner) here.
3pm: Are you a trust chair? It is now more than six months since publication of the seminal Francis report on Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, during which time we have also had the Keogh report on trusts with high mortality and the Berwick report on patient safety.
Following our inaugural research in March, HSJ and Odgers Berndtson are carrying out a joint survey of trust chairs across the acute and mental health sectors to gauge their views on key governance issues. Please take 10 minutes to complete our short survey. In recognition of your time we will enter you in a draw for £100 of Marks and Spencer vouchers. Click here to complete the survey. Responses will be anonymous and treated in strict confidence.
2.08pm: The Foundation Trust Network has urged Jeremy Hunt to prioritise trusts’ financial and clinical sustainability over concerns relating to competition. The network’s chief executive Chris Hopson wrote to the health secretary last week saying trusts must be allowed to merge or reconfigure without being obstructed by the competition authorities. HSJ has reported extensively the delays suffered by two foundation trusts in Dorset whose merger plans have so far cost them millions in legal and consultancy fees.
1.40pm: Macmillan Cancer Support has announced the appointment of Dr Fran Woodard, who joins the charity today as director of England. She will be leading a directorate of over 100 people focused on service development and innovation.
1.20pm: A dedicated, round-the-clock service to treat stroke patients in northern Lincolnshire is to be introduced at Scunthorpe General Hospital later this month. And the move will see patients from North East Lincolnshire travelling to Scunthorpe to access services. The Scunthorpe Telegraph story is here.
1235pm: Labour is considering a radical plan to make social care free at the point of need and funded through taxation, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has said. Speaking at the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers’ summit in York, Mr Burnham said he was thinking of “extending the NHS principle fully to social care”, HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle reports.
12.55pm: A local paper in Gloucestershire reports on the efforts of local campaign groups to get full A&E services restored at on the hospitals run by Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust. The Gloucestershire Echo said: “There are suggestions patients are being moved between Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Cheltenham General Hospital to free up beds and that care has suffered as a result.”
12.45pm: The Care Quality Commission will “campaign” for longer consultations and greater increases in the GP workforce, its professional adviser on primary care has said. Nigel Sparrow also said the system being developed by the inspectorate would not result in practices receiving a “single” overall rating and would be “upset” if such as system was ever introduced.
12.30pm: Anglia Commissioning Support Unit will not continue as a standalone organisation, it was claimed this weekend, amid complaints from its customers over costs and the quality of its services. It is thought likely it will either to be taken over by or merged with another CSU. Read our story here.
12pm: The DH has rejected criticism of the measure it uses to track delayed transfers of care between NHS providers and social care. In July the House of Commons health committee made damning criticism of the delayed transfers measure used by the DH and called for its urgent review. Read Ben Clover’s story here.
11.42am: Sir John Oldham, chair of the Integrating Care Strategic Advisory Board, has made an urgent plea against plans for disease specific, ‘outcome-based’ integrated pathways by CCGs. In his speech at the ISQUA Conference in Edinburgh today, Sir John estimated that the NHS will need another £40bn by 2020, unless the system is changed.
11.30am: With “health tourism” in the news the deputy chair of the British Medical Association writes in The Guardian that it is not a significant problem. But one NHS manager, @managementpawn, tweets: “I spend an increasing amount of time dealing with UK passport holders who don’t live in the UK but think the NHS owes them everything. The worst health tourists are British-born émigrés who think they can pay no UK tax then come ‘home’ after 20-odd years for free care.
11.14am: Hundreds of hospital kitchens are dirty, have infestations of pests or are stocking out-of-date food, it has been reported. Inspectors found three-quarters of kitchens were flouting hygiene rules, according to MailOnline.
11.02am: The investigation into Jimmy Savile’s alleged abuse of patients at NHS hospitals has been extended to other hospitals, the health secretary says. The inquiry, currently focused on Broadmoor, Stoke Mandeville and Leeds General hospitals, as well as a further 10 trusts, will be expanded to include “other hospitals”, Jeremy Hunt said.
11am. Paper records for patients should be scrapped and replaced with iPads, a spokesman for Plaid Cymru has said.
10.45am: The Daily Mail has followed up a story that appeared in The Sunday Times on the number of children admitted to hospital for problems relating to obesity. It says: “Over the past three years, at least 923 children under the age of 15 have needed urgent medical attention as a consequence of Britain’s obesity epidemic.”
10.20am: The NHS Confederation is planning to turn up the heat on politicians in the run-up to the 2015 general election. The confed’s “2015 Challenge” initiative will ask them to support a “deal” under which they will back reconfigurations where these are agreed by clinical commissioning groups and health and wellbeing boards. Read Dave West’s story here.
10am: Shaun Lintern reports on the claim that more than a third of hospital trusts have turned to actively recruiting nurses from overseas as they struggle to keep wards adequately staffed. The findings indicate the start of a new NHS registered nurse shortage which has led some trusts to recruit dozens of nurses from across Europe, say workforce experts.
9.32am: The new chief inspector of adult social care, Andrea Sutcliffe, has said she wants to recruit an army of ordinary people with personal experience of the care system to help carry out inspections. Read The Independent’s interview.
9.27am: On the Guardian’s Health Professions Network, Kailash Chand argues that health tourism is not a significant burden on the NHS, saying only a small number of migrants come to the UK with pre-existing health conditions.
And the Mail is just one newspaper to report today that one hospital in three is going abroad in hunt for new nurses. It also carries claims by ‘mental health experts’ that over-prescription by GPs is turning us into a nation of pill poppers.
Meanwhile, the BBC covers a report published in Lancet Oncology that cancer costs countries in the European Union €126bn euro (£107bn) a year.
8.05am: Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live, which brings you rolling coverage of the biggest stories and the most vital opinions throughout the day.
Today in Opinion, Jill Maben warns of the dangers of putting staff last in the drive to put patients first, post-Mid Staffordshire. Our Resource Centre offers two perspectives on saving money while improving patient care. In our commissioning channel, telehealth nurse Linda Milburn explains how Harrogate and District Foundation Trust has been using telehealth to support discharge and tackle bed blocking.
And Leigh Griffin explains the commissioning challenges faced by Greater Manchester and how the right support from CSUs can help to improve the region’s health.
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