Stockport Foundation Trust has been confirmed as the fourth specialist site under Greater Manchester’s Healthier Together programme for hospital services, plus the rest of the day’s news and comment

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5.30pm HSJ correspondent Lawrence Dunhill has also tweeted:

5.25pm BREAKING: It has now been confirmed that Stockport Foundation Trustwill be the fourth specialist site under the Healthier Together programme, following a formal vote.

5.24pm You can now have a read of HSJ’s roundup of Wednesday’s key stories, including:

5.15pm All 11 Greater Manchester clinical commissioning groups are in agreement in their support of Stockport Foundation Trust as the fourth specialist site.

5.10pm Lawrence Dunhill also notes:

5.02pm Lawrence Dunhill has observed:

5.01pm All clinical commissioning groups have so far voted in favour of Stockport as the fourth specialist site.

5.00pm HSJ correspondent Lawrence Dunhill, who is reporting live from Manchester, has tweeted:

4.55pm Another vote for Stockport Foundation Trust from South Manchester CCG, with access as the key factor - “We can’t make a decision that would deny access to a portion of the population that Greater Manchester serves”.

4.52pm Wigan CCG has also backed Stockport Foundation Trust on the basis that 17,000 people in Derbyshire who would not otherwise be able to reach a specialist hospital within 45 minutes.

4.50pm Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale CCG has also voted in favour of Stockport Foundation Trust.

4.48pm Stockport Foundation Trust has also been backed by North Manchester CCG, citing travel and access as swing the argument.

4.44pm BREAKING: Trafford and Salford Clinical Commissioning Groups have voted to support Stockport Foundation Trust has the fourth ‘specialist’ site as part of Healthier Together.

4.40pm The decision on Better Together is now about to be announced. Chief clinicial officer Nigel Guest, speaking first, has has said it “has not been an easy decision”.

4.25pm Back to the Healthier Together decision, due immanently, Lawrence Dunhill has tweeted:

2.51pm Lawrence Dunhill has also tweeted:

2.23pm The final decision on Healthier Together is expected to made at around 4.30pm this afternoon

HSJ’s Lawrence Dunhill has tweeted:

2.11pm HSJ editor Alatair McLellan has tweeted:

2.09pm HSJ correspondent Lawrence Dunhill has tweeted:

2.05pm The final decision is due this afternoon on changes to hospitals services in Greater Manchester as part of the Healthier Together review.

HSJ correspondent is reporting live from Manchester Town Hall. Follow HSJ Live and @LawrenceDunhill on Twitter for full updates.

1.58pm The BBC reports that a fifth of patients in English hospitals are not always treated with respect and dignity, according tosurvey of NHS patients carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE.

11.47am The Home Office has sent immigration officers into a London trust to help administrative staff identify foreign patients who could be charged for treatment.

The three month pilot at St George’s University Hospitals Foundation Trust will run until 21 August. Plain clothed immigration officers are working with trust staff to “up skill” them in identifying “potentially chargeable patients”, a note in the trust’s June board papers states.

St George’s approached the Home Office to set up the initiative.

11.38am Proposals to redesign London’s £93bn public services through wide-ranging devolution from central government have been agreed by borough leaders and the city’s mayor.

The ambitious devolution bid, obtained by HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle, sets out plans it is claimed will help the capital “outpace” New York and add £6.4bn to the capital’s economy by 2030.

The bid will mark the starting point for negotiations with government on a devolution deal which it is hoped can be agreed ahead of the spending review in the autumn.

Its demands include boroughs taking control of health and social care budgets, as well as reform to housing and unemployment rules, budgets and services.

11.25am Before we get too carried away with devolution, some time should be taken to examine where it has worked and failed to come up with the best way to take forward the government’s latest fashionable policy idea, writes Judith Smith, director of the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham.

11.20am Councils are ‘running out of time’ to make the £200m of in-year cuts to public health budgets announced by the chancellor last month, HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle has been told.

Almost six weeks after Mr Osborne revealed the shock reduction – and almost a third of the way through the financial year – local authorities are yet to receive any indication of how the axe will fall in their area.

The time lag has been blamed on the fact a promised consultation on how the cut should be applied has to get sign off from across government, due to the number of departments involved.

11.10am NHS trusts in Cornwall are exploring whether they could provide a suitable home for over 20 community services, HSJ has learned.

The discussions come after the county’s current community services provider, Peninsula Community Health, announced earlier this month it would stop running the services at the end of its contract next March.

The social enterprise has said that a number of issues, including legacy debts it inherited when it was formed, made attempts to extend its contract with Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group unviable.

The discussions come after the county’s current community services provider, Peninsula Community Health, announced earlier this month it would stop running the services at the end of its contract next March.

10.24am The Guardian reports that business secretary Sajid Javid will today unveil the biggest reforms to trade union rights for 30 years.

According to the paper, the proposals include:

  • Requirement of a minimum of 40 per cent of those asked to vote to support any strike to key public services
  • Double threshold would need to be met in any strike called in health, education, fire, transport, border security and energy sectors
  • All unions required to ask their members every five years whether they wish to pay the political levy (a significant source of funding for Labour)
  •  Unlawful or intimidatory picketing should become a criminal office, rather than a civil offence
  • New protections for workers unwilling to strike
  • Named official required to be available at all times to the police to oversee pickets
  • Unions can only renew a strike mandate with a fresh ballot within four months of the first ballot
  • Right for employers to hire strike-breaking agency staff as well
  • Unions required to give employers at least a fortnight’s notice before the industrial action starts
  • Government enabled to set a limit on the proportion of working time any public sector worker can spend on trade union duties
  • Powers for the government certification officer to fine trade unions as up to £20,000 for breaches of reporting rules, and to power to initiate investigations
  • Requirement for a clear description of the trade dispute and the planned industrial action on the ballot paper, to ensure that all union members are clear what they are voting for

10.00am With our models of NHS care widely seen as outdated and in need of major overhaul, the health service’s challenges are as complicated as Houdini’s tricks. But it is possible to successfully overcome them with a coordinated effort, writes Health Foundation policy director Richard Taunt.

9.47am The NHS should not use hospital-wide mortality rates as a ‘smoke alarm’ to identify poor quality hospitals, a major study has concluded.

The research, commissioned by NHS England, found “no significant association” between hospital wide standardised mortality ratios and the proportion of avoidable deaths in a trust.

Researchers also said that producing “avoidable death rates” via case note reviews was not a good judge of quality, calling into question the basis of government plans to “band” hospitals according to their projected rate of avoidable deaths.

9.31am A perceived crisis in the availability of mental health beds is actually caused by delayed patient discharges, according to an inquiry chaired by Lord Crisp.

An interim report by the Commission on Acute Adult Psychiatric Care has identified significant factors that could lie behind a shortage of beds in mental health services. The shortage has been blamed for the increase in patients forced to travel hundreds of miles for a bed.

The report, commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, identifies concerns around:

  • variations in standards;
  • poor data;
  • lack of support for staff; and
  • fractured commissioning systems.

Lord Crisp, former NHS chief executive and permanent secretary of the Department of Health, told HSJ: “We were asked to look at the so called beds crisis but when we looked at it we discovered the real issue was delayed discharges and people in beds who shouldn’t be there. It is a discharge crisis and an alternative to admissions crisis.

7.00am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live.

Clinical commissioning groups would need to ‘radically evolve’ to be sustainable once new care models are developed, according to a report commissioned by the Nuffield Trust.

The report, shared exclusively with HSJ, also argues that new care models outlined the NHS Five Year Forward View could bring an end to the “purchaser-provider split” that has characterised the health service since the early 1990s.

It says the responsibilities and role of CCGs would “necessarily diminish” when integrated care organisations begin to take on most population health management.

Meanwhile, to catch up on HSJ’s key stories from yesterday, read our Executive Summary.