Combined authorities could ‘jointly’ hold NHS powers, instead of them being removed from government or health service bodies entirely, under government devolution plans, plus the rest of today’s news and comment

5.40pm You can now have a read through HSJ’s roundup of today’s key stories, including:

3.00pm HSJ senior bureau chief Dave West has pointed out that is “still unclear how [responsibility and] budgets will work” in reference to his exclusive story today that combined authorities could ‘jointly’ hold NHS powers, instead of them being removed from government or health service bodies entirely, under government devolution plans.

He tweeted:

1.35pm How can trusts improve quality of care, reduce costs and drive down human error by introducing clinical decision support software?

A forthcoming HSJ webinar will discuss this and more.

This free webinar, Right Answer, Right Time, will explore the latest research both here in the UK and globally on the impact of CDS on clinicians.

Listeners can join the webinar online on July 27 from 12pm to hear about live projects in Leicester to reduce junior doctor prescribing error and in Kent where CDS is improving patient care.

There will also be a roundup of the latest global research from our webinar sponsor, CDS provider UpToDate.

Issues under discussion will include what is the evidence that CDS can improve quality of care and reduce costs and errors, as well as what is the best way to introduce CDS in a clinical setting.

You can also catch up on our previous webinars on demand

1.21pm The Mirror reports on the case of Shannon Finan, who is calling for the NHS to change its criteria on treating anorexia.

Ms Finan, now 21, said she sought advice from her GP when she was was 18, after her weight fell from after she dropped from nine to seven stone in two months. However she was denied treatment because her body mass index did not meet NHS guidelines.

11.52am EXCLUSIVE: Combined authorities could ‘jointly’ hold NHS powers, instead of them being removed from government or health service bodies entirely, under government devolution plans, HSJ has learned.

Ministers plan to lay an amendment next week which will specify this option. It will also create the first explicit mention of NHS functions in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill.

11.48am Also in The Telegraph, half of breast cancer patients could benefit from having the hormone progesterone added to their treatment, a study has found.

Cancer Research UK senior science communication officer Emma Smith said: “This exciting study in cells shows how a cheap, safe and widely available drug could potentially improve treatment for around half of all breast cancer patients.”

11.41am The Daily Telegraph reports that a lack of education could potentially reduce a person’s lifespan by a decade, and could be as deadly as smoking, according to research from the University of Colorado.

11.15am The Guardian reports that antidepressants such as Prozac are linked to a small risk of birth defects when taken during pregnancy, new research shows.

There have been claims in recent years that women taking some modern anti-depressants of the class known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have had babies with birth defects.

A team of researchers based in the US and Canada investigated data on nearly 18,000 women whose children were born with problems including brain and skull malformations and heart defects to try to establish whether antidepressants might be partly to blame.

10.35am Waiting times expert Rob Findlay has also tweeted:

10.31am HSJ correspondent Sophie Barnes has tweeted:

10.29am Manchester City Council chief executive Howard Bernstein is has been speaking at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy conference this morning.

LGC’s Sarah Calkin has been live tweeting some of his comments:

10.24am Sarah Calkin, news editor of HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle, is tweeting live from the annual Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy conference today.

The discussion is currently on plans health and social care devolution in Greater Manchester.

Follow @sjcalkin on Twitter for full updates.

10.05am Measuring C-reactive protein levels using point of care testing in primary care could reduce antibiotic prescriptions by up to 10.2 million annually, says Jonathan Cooke, visiting professor in the infectious diseases and immunity section, division of infectious diseases at the Department of Medicine, Imperial College London.

9.44am More from HSJ’s exclusive interview with David Prior:

The new minister for NHS productivity has warned that acute trusts will fail if they try to get through the coming NHS savings drive as ‘islands of autonomy’.

Lord Prior insisted the new hospital efficiency metric should help hospital boards, but admitted that “transparency can be cruel”

He also said the cap on agency fees should put spending on a “downward trend” from September, but refused to say whether the total agency bill will be lower than in 2014-15.

The former Care Quality Commission chair made the comments to HSJ in his first interview since his appointment as a health minister in May.

9.40am Have a read of HSJ’s roundup of what Wednesday’s Budget means for the NHS, including:

7.00am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live.

We start the day with an HSJ exclusive: the minister for NHS productivity has revealed that the government may legislate to ensure the relationship between doctors and medical device suppliers is above board.

Lord Prior, in an exclusive interview with HSJ yesterday, confirmed he was considering acting on the suggestion of an English equivalent of the US “Sunshine Act”, made by the review of NHS efficiency by Lord Carter.

The US law was introduced in 2010 and requires all manufacturers of medical devices and supplies to report on financial relationships with physicians and institutions, in order to uncover potential conflicts of interest.