HSJ Live 26.03.2014: HSJ reveals the top provider chief executives

1.43pm The Guardian reports that a quarter of a million older people have lost their state-funded help with carrying out everyday activities such as bathing, dressing and eating in the past four years as council budgets have been slashed and services rationed, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The paper also reports that two care workers at a £3,000-a-week private hospital have been caught on film slapping, jabbing and humiliating a brain-damaged patient as he lay groaning in bed.

1.00pm Looking to today’s newspapers, The Times reports that young women should be allowed to keep a supply of the morning-after pill at home before they need to use it, according to NICE.

The treatments advisor said that oral emergency contraception is more effective the sooner it is taken so it is “crucial that young women have it on hand in case they need it”.

Meanwhile, Google has pulled out of a deal to include NHS data within its search results because of a “toxic” backlash against the care.data scheme, the paper reports.

The internet company had been in secret talks with health chiefs over showing death rates, waiting times and other information in searches for NHS hospitals.

12.55pm More than £2.5m is being spent piloting a government scheme to make aspiring student nurses work as healthcare assistants for a year before university courses, apparently contradicting a commitment that it would be cost neutral, HSJ can reveal.

12.45pm Responding to the health secretary’s announcement on avoidable harm in the NHS, Dr Peter Carter, chief executive & general secretary of the RCN said: “Patient safety is at the heart of everything that health care staff do and they must be supported by their employers to reduce risk.

“The decision to encourage trusts to do this with reduced insurance premiums rather than the threat of fines is a welcome move.

“There are still too many organisations where a culture of blame, fear and secrecy makes it very hard for staff to admit when things have gone wrong and to learn from mistakes.

“The duty of candour recommendation will help to encourage better communication between patients and the Health Service but this must be supported by trust boards and managers, who need to lead by example and ensure that their organisation has a culture which is good for staff and good for patients.”

11.10am Welcoming Jeremy Hunt’s statement on halving avoidable harm in the NHS, Niall Dickson, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council said: “As well as an organisational duty there is a professional duty of candour. It is an essential part of an open and transparent culture that puts patients first, learns from mistakes and supports doctors to deliver the best possible care. Our guidance requires doctors to be open and honest with patients and we are working with other regulators to ensure that this is clear and consistent across healthcare professions.”

10.50am HSJ reporter Shaun Lintern is attending the NHS Confederation Mental Health Network’s annual conference. He’ll be tweeting extensively during the day and covering speeches from both outgoing NHS England chief David Nicholson and care minister Norman Lamb.

The NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network (MHN) is calling for Mr Stevens to demonstrate a commitment to parity between mental health and physical health. The call sits alongside the mental health sector’s continued challenge of unequal funding reductions for acute hospitals and mental health services.

At its 2014 annual conference, which focuses on the future of mental health over the next 20 years, the Network says the Government’s pledge on parity of mental and physical health must be matched with parity of funding.

In The future of mental health: #MHN2014, being launched at the conference, the Network says projections for a significant gap in investment are a major cause for concern among members, and that bold leadership is vital to tackle it.

The paper sets out challenges facing mental health and mental health services, including demographic changes and economic challenges. It says that a coherent plan is essential if the sector is to meet the future demands it will encounter.

The discussion paper challenges providers of mental health and learning disability services to be ready for the future by developing innovative new models of care, making better use of technology to deliver more efficient services, and developing a consensus on how the sector’s future workforce should look.

At a keynote session, the MHN’s senior team will lead members in exploring how to “future-proof” high-quality cost-effective mental health services, including a discussion on joining up care and considering what sort of organisational model is best placed to deliver future services.

Chief executive of the Mental Health Network Stephen Dalton said: “Mental health services are at a tipping point. After decades of transformational change and improving care within resources available, it’s now time for the Government to play its part and recognise the importance of mental health.”

Delegates at the sold-out conference will also hear from Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb MP, and NHS England’s outgoing chief executive Sir David Nicholson, in his last major engagement before stepping down at the end of the month.

In a separate session chaired by NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Mental Health, Dr Geraldine Strathdee, delegates will look at ways of improving emergency responses to mental health crises. Dr Strathdee will be joined by Commander Christine Jones, mental health lead at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive at charity Turning Point, to discuss joined up responses for people experiencing a mental health crisis.

10.30am Acute services in the NHS in England are facing a year of particular financial pressure in 2015-16, when changes to funding arrangements will see £2bn transferred to community health and social care provision, a parliamentary report has warned.

In its report on Monitor’s work, the committee warned that the current model of care is “not changing quickly enough” to cope with demand and funding pressures, resulting in a threat to both the quality of care received by patients and the financial stability of individual providers.

10.23am Mr Hunt is also set to use the speech to announce government plans to consult on extending the planned new duty of candour on providers to incidents causing moderate harm, as well as death and serious harm.

The patient safety charity Action against Medical Accidents welcomed this development. Peter Walsh, the organisation’s chief executive, said: “This is potentially the biggest advance in patients’ rights and patient safety since the creation of the NHS. 

“For decades the NHS has frowned upon cover-ups but has been prepared to tolerate them.  A lack of honesty when things go wrong adds insult to injury and causes unnecessary pain and suffering for everyone.  Organisations that hide the truth are also less likely to learn from it.  We are extremely grateful for the Secretary of State’s preparedness to listen and the insight and leadership he has shown on this issue. This is the result of a David and Goliath struggle to outlaw cover ups and promote a culture of openness in healthcare.

“The challenge now is to make sure that the detail and the delivery is right. We will also be looking to other parts of the UK to follow suit.”

10.05am Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of midwives, said: “The safety of the people in our care should be at the centre of everything that the NHS does and our NHS is one of the safest health services in the world. However,  I worry that I have heard this before from Governments without any real progress being made.

“Safety is about having the right numbers of staff and high performing teams working together to deliver the best care, and this is crucial if we are to deliver safe maternity care. Safety also needs NHS staff being treated properly with trusts promoting open, honest and caring cultures if they are to get the best out of them; you can only have candour if staff feel their concerns will be listened to, they are treated with compassion and that they will be given the support they need.

“There are a number of areas in maternity services where real progress could be made to reducing avoidable harm and improving safety. These include ensuring that women get much better continuity of care, one-to-one care in labour and better postnatal care so that problems such as postnatal infection are spotted and treated.

”This is not something that will be solved with one thing or one initiative. It needs many approaches and the buy-in of NHS staff and senior managers and all the organisations controlling our NHS. Only then will our NHS be even safer and delivering the levels of care that our country, our NHS and our NHS staff are capable of.”

9.58am Leaders from around the health service have broadly welcomes the health secretary’s announcement.

Catherine Dixon, chief executive of the NHS Litigation Authority said: “The NHS Litigation Authority is delighted to be supporting the Secretary of State for Health’s vision for the NHS to become not only the fairest healthcare system in the world, but also the safest. 

“Ensuring the safety of everyone who comes into contact with health services is one of the most important challenges facing health care today. Patients expect and are entitled to the safest possible care.  There is also a known financial cost as well as that of pain and suffering.   A policy and financial context that rewards greater safety and quality is one component of an effective safety management system.

“The NHS Litigation Authority’s pricing methodology rewards its scheme members by ensuring that those organisations with fewer less costly claims pay less for their indemnity cover hence supporting the NHS to reduce harm and incentivise patient and staff safety.  Therefore, those members which reduce their claims as a result of implementing safety initiatives which reduce harmful poor care and improve patient safety will overtime benefit financially by seeing the cost of their indemnity cover reduce.”

9.53am Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to use a major speech in the US today to launch a “patient safety movement” aimed at halving rates of avoidable harm in the NHS over the next three years.

Signing up to the “movement” will be voluntary, but NHS providers that do so will be entitled to discounts on their insurance premiums with the NHS Litigation Authority.

6.00am Good morning. In our next instalment of chief executives sharing their learnings Peter Homa talks about the way the leadership handled problems at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust when there were high numbers of cancelled operations in 2011-12.

 

 

expected to use a major speech in the US today to launch a “patient safety movement” aimed at halving rates of avoidable harm in the NHS over the next three years.