HSJ Live 28.05.2013: Health Education England Mandate

5.15pm: University Hospital Birmingham has achieved academy status for newly developed West Midlands Clinical Coding Academy.

It’s part of the National Classifications Service Clinical Coding Academies which provide a range of NHS training services.

5.03pm: HSJ reporter David Williams tweets on the NHS Property Services story:

CCG: “[We] inherited PCT assets, only to discver when it was too late the PCT had allocated substantial chunks of relevant budgets to NHSPS”

— David Williams (@dwilliamsHSJ) May 28, 2013

4.55pm: A new report reveals concern about using friends and family test in A&E. A senior source closely following trusts’ progress in implementing the friends and family test told HSJ: “Hardly anyone is getting near the 15 per cent required response rate for A&E. It doesn’t give any real guide to quality either.

The audit of 162 trusts by consultancy Fr3dom Health was carried out in February and March, it found trusts had highlighted concerns about the viability of the friends and family test in A&E.

3.04pm: Hospitals currently being investigated for having high death rates employ far fewer doctors per patient than others, academics have discovered writes the Telegraph. Plymouth University researchers found that troubled hospitals have 17 per cent fewer doctors per 100 beds than those not under investigation by Sir Bruce Keogh. HSJ reported this story two months ago. You can read the full analysis of the research here.

2.35pm: Mike Birtwistle tweets:

Re Spending Review, Health is ‘protected’ but apparently hasn’t settled. If Health is happy with its protection then this seems odd

— Mike Birtwistle (@MBirty) May 28, 2013

1.45pm: A first-year doctor has died in Syria after the makeshift hospital he was working in was shelled. Dr Isa Abdur Rahman worked at the Royal Free in 2011 and 2012, before taking a year out of his training to undertake relief work for syrian refugees.

A JustGiving donation page set up by Hand in Hand for Syria following his death has raised more than £25,000 so far.

1.02pm: Former Labour health minister Lord Norman Warner has warned that the NHS’ business model is almost bust.

“There is an urgent need for the kind of leadership that can force a consolidation of 24/7 acute services on fewer specialist sites; redeployment of resources, staff and money, to better community-based services integrated with social care; and rebuilding the funding of social care at the expense of the NHS.” The transfer of funds from the NHS should be at least £2bn, he said at a Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre forum.

He added without the firm leadership individuals like Enoch Powell showed in ‘tearing down’ Victorian asylums and shifting spending, the NHS faces a financial ‘train crash’ after 2015.

“We seem politically, professionally and managerially incapable of changing this failing business model at the pace now required,” said Lord Warner.

The full speech can be read here: http://www.haciric.org/news/how-to-fix-the-bust-nhs-business-model

12.18pm: The government is planning a “talking” pilot to improve NHS culture. Health minister Dan Poulter told HSJ sister title Nursing Times the government was investing £650,000 to expand a pilot of what are known as Schwartz Center Rounds to an extra 40 hospitals over the next two years.

11.59am: Under the new mandate a taskforce has been established by Health Education England to investigate how it can incentivise trainee doctors to work in emergency medicine.

HSJ understands the taskforce will produce its recommendations this summer and seek to tackle the long-term shortage of doctors working in A&E departments, as instructed by the mandate.

10.58am: Dr Nicki Latham, chief operating officer at Health Education England has been appointed visiting professor at Leeds Metropolitan University.

10.50am: Julie Bailey is moving from Stafford according to the Daily Mirror. The campaigner who exposed the Stafford Hospital scandal says she is leaving town after she received abusive messages and her mother’s grave was vandalised. After the grave was desecrated, she got a card that reportedly read: “Thank you for closing Stafford hospital, Ha, Ha, Ha, you better now spend more time watching your mother’s grave.”

10.31am: On the mandate the Daily Mailwrites that just 40 per cent of the 6,500 student doctors each year currently go on to be GPs.

More on the research into stroke - the paper reports that Professor Keith Muir who led the study was surprised to find patients able to move their fingers after years of paralysis or regaining the ability to walk independently.

10.25am: Also reporting on the new five-year mandate, The Guardian says other proposals include setting minimum standards for healthcare assistants by spring 2014 and developing a plan to enable them to go on to enter nursing.

10.23am: Stroke victims’ recovery could be improved by stem cell treatment that can “kick start” the body’s repair process. Five stroke victims showed signs of recovery after treatment in a trial the Telegraph reports. The research was by Glasgow University and innitial results will be presented at the European Stroke Conference in London today.

10.12am: The Telegraph also reports on the new mandate announced by Jeremy Hunt. More medical students are to become accident and emergency doctors or family doctors the paper says.

10.06am: The government’s new “mandate” instructions for Health Education England can be read here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-education-england-mandate

10.02am: Health visitors to be trained to help new mothers cope with body image, The Times also reports. It caries a page 4 story that Ministers are to launch a pilot study looking at how health visitors on routine checks after births will be trained to sopt mothers who appear to be depressed about their body image.

9.55am: Fewer doctors will be trained to become hospital specialists under plans for a big boost in GP numbers reports The Times. Half of all nurses will also do part of their training in the community as ministers aim to create “a more flexible workforce” that can treat patients away from the hospital.

The targets are from a mandate delivered to Health Education England. Half of all medical students should train to become GPs so that there are 2,000 more family doctors by 2018, while 1000,000 NHS staff are to get more training for treating people with dementia.

9.50am: About 160 NHS staff have been outsourced to South west Pathology Services - a joint venture between french multinational Sodexo and Musgrove Park and Yeovil District NHS trusts. The company will provide pathology services to the two hospitals in a 20-year contract woth £300m reports Financial Times.

8.38am: Warrington clinical commissioning group was authorised in December 2012 without conditions. Dr Sarah Baker, chief clinical officer at Warrington CCG, examines how the new commissioning landscape has affected the people of Warrington.

8.17am: HR is not just about administration; it should contribute strategically and operationally to organisational performance. This can be achieved by employing HR business partners aligned to departments/business units to link HR and organisational development to local service priorities and at corporate level through the HR director and their team.

Today on HSJ’s innovation and efficiency channel, Sally Campbell and colleagues look at how, with cuts in back-office spending, cross-organisational partnerships can achieve the required economies of scale, while maintaining efficiency.