Inspectors express ‘urgent concern’ at the risk to patients arriving by ambulance at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust’s main emergency department, plus the rest of the day’s news and comment

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5.01pm Some breaking news: Steve Shrubb, chief executive of West London Mental Health Trust, announced his retirement today to take effect from 20 November.

Trust chairman, Tom Hayhoe, and the board will work with the Trust Development Authority to find a successor.

Announcing his retirement Mr Shrubb said: “This autumn will be my 40th anniversary in the NHS. It is a major milestone in anyone’s career and as such I have reflected that it is the right time for me to retire.

“It has not been an easy decision. Working in the NHS has genuinely been the greatest privilege of my life. This is in large part due to the incredible compassion, energy and commitment of people who work in the trust and my colleagues across the NHS.

“I want to thank the trust staff and my colleagues in health and social care for the support they have given me personally and for their inspiring dedication to helping patients whose needs are great.”

Mr Shrubb said he was retiring in order to become a carer to his elderly parents.

Trust chairman Tom Hayhoe said: “I first met Steve several years ago when he was leading the NHS Confederation Mental Health Network and more recently enjoyed working with him to encourage collaboration between the trust and the local acute hospital where I was chairman. It was a real pleasure to come into my new role in April and see at first hand Steve’s leadership and dynamism in action.

“He has achieved a great deal during his time at the trust – he has put in place new clinically led leadership, engaged staff to improve quality and patient outcomes, given a greater voice to service users and carers and delivered the redevelopment of St Bernard’s and Broadmoor hospitals, which is now progressing apace. And he has done so with warmth, humour and great personal integrity. He will be much missed and I wish him and his family well in the future.”

4.01pm Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust has been rated ‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission.

While the inspectors found the acute trust’s services to be safe and caring, they flagged the lack of consultants in acute and emergency medicine and delays in ambulance handover times.

The CQC also said the trust must do more to report incidents, particularly near misses.

1.42pm Reconfiguration of acute services in Worcestershire will go ahead after receiving the green light from the West Midlands Clinical Senate.

However, it did not sign off on the detail of a planned downgrade of accident and emergency services at one of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust’s sites.

1.41pm Merseyside trusts made payments totalling at least £135,000 to help cover redundancy costs when they terminated their HR contracts with Capita, HSJ can reveal.

The company started providing payroll and recruitment services to nine trusts in the “Merseyside consortium” in 2012.

However, the contracts were terminated last year, only three years into the seven year deal. The services were brought in house following claims of problems with staff payments and recruitment delays.

10.59am The Royal College of Nursing hasresponding to Jeremy Hunt’s investment in new GPs to deliver a seven day service. Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said:

“We welcome this announcement as it is a further step towards the goal of delivering high quality patient care at any time of the week.

“While GPs are central, practice nurses have a huge contribution to make and will be essential if a seven day service is to be realised.

“Developing a preventative health service is an important strategy. By promoting healthy living standards the NHS has the ability to significantly reduce pressures on both primary care and acute health services, but this requires forethought – and investment.

“There is no one solution to providing a 7 day health service – it will take highly skilled multidisciplinary teams to achieve this goal. The RCN will continue to work with the Government and the NHS to help these ambitions become a reality.”

10.42am Private health companies are seeking talks with ministers and health service leaders to secure a bigger role in providing NHS care amid frustration that the Conservatives have failed to drive the growth of the sector, reports the Financial Times.

The NHS spent just under £7bn buying services from private providers in 2013-14, but the sector believes hundreds of millions of pounds of additional investment by companies could be unlocked if there was a more stable operating environment, the paper says.

An investigation by the British Medical Journal found 6 per cent of about 3,500 contracts it examined had been awarded through competitive tender, despite critics claiming that the Health and Social Care Act amounted to “forced privatisation”.

10.11am Plus:

10.06am And this:

10.05am Some announcements from the health secretary:

10.01am The NHS is also going to try to encourage more GPs to return to practice:

9.49am The health secretary says the NHS needs to focus on “under doctored” areas:

9.47am However Mr Hunt says governments have not looked after general practice.

9.42am Mr Hunt has started his speech:

9.35am My colleague Judith Welikala is at the speech where Jeremy Hunt is going to launch his “new deal” for GPs. You can follow her on Twitter @JudithWelikala but we’ll keep you abreast of what’s being said here on HSJ Live too.

7.00am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live. We kick off this morning with the news that hospital inspectors have expressed ‘urgent concern’ at the risk to patients arriving by ambulance at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust’s main emergency department where they saw severe overcrowding.

The Care Quality Commission has rated the trust “requires improvement” following inspections earlier this year.

Inspectors found variation in the quality and safety of services delivered throughout the Queen Alexandra Hospital, the trust’s main site in the city, according to a report published today.