Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has told his party’s spring conference the government will spend an extra £250m a year for five years on child and adolescent mental health services, plus the rest of today’s news and comment

6.10pm Here’s a quick summary of the top stories from HSJ today:

6.01pm In an interview with The Spectator, Andy Burnham has stated how the plan for DevoManc contrasts with Labour’s plans for health and social care integration.

The shadow health secretary said: “My vision was about empowering individual councils to lead integration and I honestly believe that integration is led from a local level not from a Greater Manchester or county level but that’s what [chancellor George] Osborne’s plans seem to be about.

“He is going to create a new body at Greater Manchester level, he wants to appoint a new chief executive I’m told which again I’m really not convinced of the wisdom of that.

“This is about a lot of functions moving around and people being moved from NHS England.

“What I’ve said is, I need to be convinced. The principles I support, the actual precise vehicle he’s come up with I’m not yet persuaded by.  

“Also the Swiss cheese point is important because is he saying that he’s going to get a funding deal for Manchester and that’s it, you’re on your own?  

“Is that what he’s actually saying?  Because if he is, then that’s a big change to the way the NHS has operated.”

5.23pm University Hospital of South Manchester Foundation Trust has appointed Barry Clare as its new chairman, effective from today (Monday 16th March 2015).

Mr Clare has taken up with position with immediate effect.

He succeeds Felicity Goodey, who retired at the end of January after seven years in post.

Mr Clare was the creator of Boots Healthcare International, the international ‘over the counter’ consumer healthcare business of the Boots Company PLC. He was also a board member of Boots, during which time he was responsible for the global expansion of international brands including Nurofen, Strepsils and Clearasil.

Trust chief executive Attila Vegh, Chief Executive said; “On behalf of everyone at UHSM, I am delighted to welcome Barry to our organisation.

“We are thrilled to have a new chair that has an international healthcare profile who will no doubt be a driving force behind helping UHSM achieve its full potential by working collaboratively with our partners.”

Mr Clare said he was “delighted to be joining UHSM… at what is an incredibly important time for the NHS in Greater Manchester!.

“I advocate strong collaborative working with our stakeholders and it’s such an opportune time for me to join UHSM just weeks after the historic announcement of groundbreaking plans for health and social care in Greater Manchester,” he added.

4.32pm The BBC reports that a seventh British healthcare worker has been flown back to the UK after suspected contact with Ebola.

The healthcare worker has been assessed and discharged from the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, but is being kept under close observation, according to officials.

Public Health England said the risk to the general public from the disease was”very low”.

3.00pm Monitor has appointed Stan Silverman as its deputy medical director.

Mr Silverman joins Monitor from the NHS Trust Development Authority where he also held the post of deputy medical director.

He was previously medical director for the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority and associate medical director for the Midlands and East Strategic Health Authority, and was a consultant vascular surgeon in Birmingham.

Monitor’s medical director Mascie-Taylor said: “Stan’s experience both as a surgeon and as a medical director in regional and national bodies will be a real asset to Monitor as we work to help the NHS deliver better services to patients at the same time as living within its means.

“I welcome him and look forward to working with him.”

Mr Silverman said: “I’m really looking forward to joining Monitor. At the NHS Trust Development Authority, I’ve seen first-hand the challenge the NHS faces.

“I’m looking forward to getting stuck in to help Monitor help the NHS deliver the change needed.”

2.22pm The leader of a provider recently granted foundation trust status has said that the organisation has been presented with an ‘exciting’ opportunity to push forward with new models of care outlined in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust completed the FT process earlier this month. Chief executive Ruth Hawkins told HSJ this meant the provider could now take forward the new care models “agenda”.

The trust was named by NHS England as one of the vanguard sites providing enhanced heath in care homes last week.

1.28pm The capital’s boroughs are ready for a health deal like that of Greater Manchester, says Peter John, leader of Southwark Council.

12.45pm The government’s anti-obesity adviser has insisted that serving meals without vegetables and “grazing” on the move must become socially unacceptable to discourage unhealthy eating, The Times reports.

Susan Jebb said she wants food policy to learn from tobacco control. She says that voluntary action within the food industry has reached its limits and that a fizzy drink tax is a “no-brainer”.

After years of defending government policy, she said ministers have been too weak and must not let the “nanny state mantra” put them off tougher action.

11.59am As part of its campaign to address childhood mental health problems, The Times reports that poor childhood mental health has cost £550bn in lost earnings and tax revenue over the past 40 years, according to the first comprehensive study of the problem.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the economics think-tank, said that people who experience mental illness in childhood will lose more than £300,000 each in income, on average, during their lifetime.

It said that adults who struggled with psychological problems as children go on to work fewer hours and earn less money. They are also more likely to experience unemployment.

The case for early intervention with children who suffer poor mental health — a central demand of The Times’s campaign, Time to Mind — comes after Nick Clegg announced at the weekend that £1.25 billion is to be ploughed into mental health services for young people over the next five years.

11.38am A recommendation by the Kirkup inquiry that national standards should be drawn up for all clinical leads would be “a struggle” to apply in practice, according to a leading regulatory lawyer.

The investigation chaired by Bill Kirkup into care failings at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust, which was published earlier this month, recommended that “clear national standards” should be drawn up “setting out the professional duties and expectations of clinical leads at all levels”.

Speaking to HSJ, Corinne Slingo, a partner at the law firm DAC Beachcroft, said it would be “a struggle” to create a common standard because of the variation in roles across the health care system.

11.26am The Times reports on comments by UKIP leader Nigel Farage that the children of migrants who come to Britain should not be able to attend state schools or use the NHS for five years.

Mr Farage said he wants the UK to be like “most countries in the world” whereby newcomers have to pay their own way when it comes to education and healthcare.

A policy on the UKIP website states: Immigrants must financially support themselves and their dependents for five years. This means private health insurance (except emergency medical care), education and housing.”

11.10am The Guardian reports that Labour and the Conservatives have rejected a plea from doctors’ leaders to “put their money where their mouth is” and guarantee the NHS an extra £8bn a year by 2020.

The two main parties have rejected a pre-election demand by an alliance of bodies representing GPs, hospital consultants and other doctors that they commit to finding the “substantial” sum if they form the next government.

The Liberal Democrats have pledged the extra funding.

10.50am A Commons health committee report has called for social care to be free to everyone at the end of life, the BBC reports.

There is”great variation in quality and practice across both acute and community settings,” the report said.

It recommended that one senior person in each NHS Trust should be given responsibility for monitoring the delivery of end of life care.

Committee chair Sarah Wollaston said: “We must make sure that specialist palliative care expertise is accessible within hospitals and community settings as well as within our hospices.”

Care services minister Norman Lamb said the government was looking into a policy for free end of life social care.

You can read the full health committee report on end of life care here.

10.26am A grassroot initiative that started as a women’s movement, realised that to open up to the diversity of different thoughts male as well as female perspectives were needed.

In the second of a series on thought diversity as part of the Change Challenge, Celine Schillinger tells her story.

10.10am Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has told his party’s spring conference the government will spend an extra £250m a year for five years on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

The funding increase is set to be unveiled in this week’s budget and is an attempt by the government to head off criticism that its rhetoric on mental health has not been matched with the reality as trusts have reported year on year real-terms funding cuts.

It is unclear at this stage how the increase will be funded and how it will be distributed.

An investment of £80m this year ahead of new mental health access targets was criticised by providers after around half was allocated from existing budgets with the remainder coming from NHS England.

Speaking to the conference yesterday Mr Clegg said: “This huge expansion - £1.25bn over the course of the next parliament - will help around 110,000 children, children who at the moment are being let down by the system.

“It’s an institutionalised form of cruelty, the way we allow vulnerable children with mental health problems to basically have to fend for themselves at the moment.

“This big announcement I’m making is going to seek to change that. It won’t happen overnight, it will happen over the coming years.

“It’s all part of a journey where we start, as a country, lifting the stigma that has surrounded mental health and making sure that we treat mental health in the same way as we do people with physical health problems.”

The investment follows severe cuts in child and adolescent mental health services.

In a Parliamentary answer to shadow health secretary Andy Burnham in January, mental health minister Norman Lamb revealed spending on CAMHs services had seen substantial real-terms cuts according to the programme budget data from NHS England.

This showed budgets had fallen by 4.5 per cent from £751m in 2010-11 to £717m in 2012-13. Data for 2013-14 was not included but the overall real-terms decline in mental health spending during this period has been around 3.3 per cent.

Welcoming the announcement, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said: “Today our campaign for NHS mental health services gets an important boost. This much needed investment will kick-start a multi-year upgrade in care for younger people and their families. NHS nurses, therapist and doctors will use this funding to benefit families in every part of the country.”

Hilary Cass, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said: “Children and young peoples’ mental health services have been the Cinderella service for far too long. It’s a service in turmoil with an RCPsych survey published just this week, highlighting a lack of access to acute mental health beds and a stretched community service.

“So [this] funding announcement is very welcome indeed, providing a much needed boost to a cash strapped service. It’s great to see that government is listening to the messages about the importance of investing in children’s mental health.

“This will not just bring much-needed help to the young people in urgent need of these services right now - it will also prevent the development of even more serious problems in later life.

“It is however vital that we never allow a repeat of the chronic underfunding we have seen, so we very much hope that the government will commit to collect regular data on the prevalence of mental health conditions so we can plan services effectively for the future.”

Mark Winstanley, chief executive of mental health charity Rethink said: “This extra funding in child and adolescent mental health services is urgently needed. Every week we hear shocking stories about children being held in police cells, or sent hundreds of miles away from home for care, because the right support isn’t available in their own community.

“For a long time we have campaigned for young people to have better access to services like early intervention care, so we welcome this new investment and the further introduction of waiting times.

“However, we know that investment and transformation of care needs to happen right across the board so that all people experiencing mental health problems - from children to pregnant women to people experiencing severe and enduring mental illness - can all get the help they need.”

9.54am On Saturday, at Labour’s spring conference, party leader Ed Miliband reiterated points about the NHS being central to its general election campaign. As previously announced, a range of NHS access commitments and promises of more staff make up one of Labour’s “pledges”.

Mr Miliband said: “Our third pledge is focused on the bedrock of security for working families, our National Health Service…

“We need to rescue the NHS from this Government and we will. With 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more doctors, 5,000 more care workers, and 3,000 more midwives.

“Paid for by a mansion tax on properties worth over £2 million to support our time to care fund. And by closing tax loopholes exploited by hedge funds that this Tory government will never stand up to. That’s the way to ensure that those who look after us have time to care and aren’t rushed off their feet.

“We will make sure people can see a GP within 48 hours. That cancer test results come back within a week. And we will build a world leading physical health, mental health and social care service. Joining up services from home to hospital.

“The creation of the NHS is the proudest achievement of this party. The rescue of the NHS will be the proudest achievement of the next Labour government.”

9.45am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live.

Over in our comment section, Rob Whiteman, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, warns that without effective healthcare commissioning and achieving better value for money through combined local interventions, transformative change could severely aggravate NHS deficits.