Tips from HSJ editor Alastair McLellan on how to win an HSJ Award, plus the rest of today’s news and comment

5.04pm Politics Home has got an interview with Simon Stevens.

The NHS England chief executive delivers a strong line on obesity - here’s a quote from the piece: “There’s no silver bullet for the many challenges facing the NHS, as Simon Stevens knows better than most. GP services which are frequently overwhelmed, A&E departments which face recurring crises and billion-pound questions over funding won’t be solved easily. But as a starting point, the NHS England chief executive sums up one solution with a neat, three-word prescription: ‘Eat less rubbish.’”

3.36pm A learning disability unit in Lincolnshire has been temporarily closed due to ‘concerns surrounding the quality of care being provided’.

The decision to shut the Long Leys Court inpatient unit, run by Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust, was made public on Friday by the trust and South West Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

Police have also been notified about two incidents involving patient safety and care.

There have been a number of “serious incidents” at the unit which have highlighted concerns, according to a statement announcing the closure.

1.51pm The chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals Trust has urged the NHS to learn from the commissioning mistakes which led to the collapse of the trust’s dermatology service.

Peter Homa has also said the trust’s dermatology department, which in 2013 had 11 consultants, will be left with one full-time and one part-time consultant from July.

Dermatology services were transferred to the Circle-run Nottingham Treatment centre in 2013 following a competitive tender by Rushcliffe CCG that split emergency and elective and adult and children’s services between the trust and Circle.

In a statement following the publication of an independent review into the transfer, Mr Homa said the changes imposed by commissioners “dismantled Nottingham’s previously distinguished dermatology service, including research and teaching to trainees and medical students”.

“This situation was consistently raised and predicted by NUH consultants. Many of our most experienced consultants have left NUH to work at other centres. From July this year we will have one full-time and one part-time consultant,” he added.

1.42pm A West Midlands clinical commissioning group’s controversial proposal to restrict access to NHS funded hearing aids has been narrowly approved by a council scrutiny committee.

The approval of North Staffordshire CCG’s plan – the first time a group has restricted access to hearing aids – was described by a hearing charity as a “serious blow”.

12.49pm A London clinical commissioning group will start to fund a specialist community perinatal mental health service after mothers described how they only received help ‘at the point of desperation’.

Bromley CCG does not currently commission specialist community perinatal mental health services as recommended in National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance. It was rated “red” in a survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Centre for Quality Improvement last year.

The CCG will invest £270,000 a year in the specialist service.

11.59am We’ve created a video, featuring HSJ’s editor Alastair McLellan, giving you the inside track on how to win an HSJ Award - watch it here.

The deadline for applications for the 2015 HSJ Awards is 19 June.

11.35am Here’s that tweet from James Titcombe:

11.33am James Titcombe, the CQC national safety adviser and Morecambe Bay campaigner, has posted a photo on Twitter which appears to show that someone has written to the chief executive of the CQC to object to his tweeting about the Kirkup report.

The letter to David Behan reads: “I do not know if you are aware of the Twitter and other social media discussions which have been going on between midwives, James Titcombe and others since the publication of the Morecambe Bay Report.”

“The debate that has been going on strikes me as being somewhat unconstructive and I know is causing distress for some of the people involved.

“I am trying to encourage midwives to be constructive and not to be antagonistic over Twitter and I wondered if you would consider it appropriate to have a chat with James along such lines.”

Mr Titcombe, who regularly tweets about the safety of maternity services, has complained of receiving “vitriol” on social media from some midwives.

11.11am The Daily Mail reports that pharmaceutical firms are taking legal action to try to reduce the Cancer Drugs Fund budget.

The fund’s budget has risen from £200m to £336m, which the Mail says is hitting companies’ profits because of repayments the pharmaceutical industry is required to make to the Department of Health under the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme. The Association of British Pharmaceuticals Industry has said it wants budget to be cut back to £200m.

10.43am The Daily Telegraph reports that wet wipes could be spreading bacteria rather than killing it in hospitals, scientists have warned.

Research by Cardiff Univeirsity found that the tissues are helping to spread superbugs in NHS wards.

The majority of British hospitals infection control policies support the use of clinical detergent tissues to clean wards.

10.33am Electronic cigarettes are to be banned in enclosed public spaces and workplaces as part of a raft of radical health plans announced by the Welsh government, The Guardian reports.

The law would be the first such restriction in the UK and would be hugely controversial among thousands of users, producers and campaigners who believe the use of e-cigarettes can help smokers of conventional cigarettes quit.

Other measures proposed by the Labour-controlled government is the creation of a compulsory national licensing system in relation to acupuncture, body-piercing, electrolysis and tattooing. The government in Cardiff is also intending to prohibit the intimate piercing of children under 16.

10.29am Also in The Times, deaths from less common cancers in England are rising, according to the first publication of data on nearly 280 types of the disease.

There were 2,700 more deaths from such cancers in 2013 than in 2010.

10.26am In other locum news, a gynaecologist who moonlighted as a locum while on sick leave from his own hospital has been told he will be jailed unless he repays £98,000 to the NHS, The Times reports.

Anthony Madu, 45, was convicted in October of six charges of fraud after working at hospitals across England while employed by the Cardiff and Vale University health board.

10.25am The Times reports that one in four GPs is now a locum, as family doctors abandon full-time jobs for less stressful work.

The figures were compiled by the National Association of Sessional GPs which represents locums.

Locum leaders are setting up “chambers” modelled on the legal profession as temporary work becomes a permanent career choice for many more doctors.

7.00am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live.

We start the day with an HSJ exclusive: there should be a single pooled budget for all health and social care services in every area by 2020 at the latest, according to a new report by the King’s Fund.

The study, which has been shared exclusively with HSJ and its sister title Local Government Chronicle, also recommends that the Department of Health be given control of the national budget for social care.