HSJ Live 28.04.2015: 10 potential MPs to watch in health

6.10pm Here is our daily digest of the news, including the results of our poll asking voters about the main political parties NHS pledges.

1.25pm In the HSJ Leader column Alastair McLellan writes that the health secretary will be more hands on than Hunt has ever been.

1.15pm Our exclusive pre-election poll tested the popularity of a series of key health policy pledges from across the political spectrum.

The HSJ/FTI Consulting survey found widespread support for ideas proposed by the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour, and that these messages had not necessarily translated into political advantage.

1.05pm Voters believe Labour is the party most likely to give the NHS the money it needs over the next five years, even though the Conservatives have promised more cash for the service in the next Parliament, according to an exclusive HSJ poll.

The finding comes from the final instalment of HSJ and FTI Consulting’s pre-election opinion polling and is one of several results that suggest high profile campaign messages on the NHS have made little difference to how the main parties are perceived by voters.

In a poll conducted on 23-24 April, we asked a representative sample of 2,000 voters which of the main parties they believed would give the NHS the most money over the next Parliament, and which they trusted to give the NHS the funding it needs to safeguard its future.

While the CCG received £1.8m from NHS England to contribute to the costs of implementing Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust’s tariff agreement for 2015-16, the actual bill for implementation is £4.2m.

The CCG has said it will aim to plug the £2.4m shortfall with funding from its own risk reserves, board documents say.

12.05pm In The Times, Isabel Hardman has written a piece on the use of ‘do not attempt resuscitation’ orders, following press coverage yesterday of NHS England’s guidelines that doctors should discuss the issue with elderly patients.

She writes: “People assume a DNAR decision is a sign that their doctor is writing them off, considering them worthless. Far from it. Resuscitation pursued simply out of fear of death writes people out of a good death.”

12.00pm HSJ’s Comment Editor, Andy Cowper, has written a moving tribute to Professor Aidan Halligan, who passed away yesterday.

10.20am Britain is losing more young people to diabetes than the average for western Europe, The Times reports.

Death rates in boys and men aged 15 to 24 have almost doubled since 2000 and appear to be overtaking the United States, research has found.

10.15am Tributes are being paid to an inspiring healthcare leader who passed away yesterday.

During his career Professor Aidan Halligan was deputy chief medical officer and director of Well North, a Public Health England initiative.

Roger Kline has written a tribute to him.

HSJ editor Alastair McLellan has tweeted: “Very sad indeed. A lovely guy who made some v important contributions to the NHS.”

10.05am The Daily Telegraph reports this morning that hospital chiefs in Wolverhampton have had to apologise to a nurse after doctors mixed up her medical notes with another patient and wrongly diagnosed her with cancer.

Elizabeth Dawes, 39, underwent extensive surgery after she had a right breast biopsy which revealed she had Grade 3 invasive cancer that needed immediate treatment.

Doctors advised Mrs Dawes to have a double mastectomy which she refused but she had surgery to remove the tumour and lymph nodes from her armpit.

In July 2013 the mother-of-one went under the knife at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton , where she worked at the time.

But four days after the operation, Mrs Dawes’ consultant admitted there had been a mix-up between three patients’ notes containing biopsy results and her own test had come back negative

Her solicitors investigated how the error occurred and secured an admission of liability from the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust for the misdiagnosis and the unnecessary surgery which was performed.

9.35am A nurse who filmed himself raping two female patients while they were unconscious in a hosital A&E departmen has been jailed for 18 years, The Guardian reports.

Andrew Hutchinson, 29, assaulted the women at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, where he worked, when they were brought in after drinking too much on nights out. One was 18, the other 35.

The rapes took place in curtained-off boothswith colleagues just metres away.

9.35am The Guardian reports that a former midwife will not fight claims that her actions contributed to the deaths of two babies, a misconduct tribunal was told yesterday.

Marie Teresa Ratcliffe, who worked at Furness General Hospital in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, did not attend the hearing at the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

A letter from Ratcliffe to the NMC panel read: “I am a human being of goodwill. I accept that I have made mistakes and apologise to those affected by them. I will regret what happened for the rest of my life”.

The panel was told that Ratcliffe accepts 77 allegations relating to her involvement in the treatment of 14 patients between February 2004 and September 2013.

7.00am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live. We begin the day with the news that three candidates with experience of NHS management feature in a top 10 list of potential MPs to watch in health after the election.

Hanover, a public affairs firm, has profiled 10 prospective parliamentary candidates standing for election in “winnable” seats with a background or particular interest in health.

The list also includes a former health minister, a health and wellbeing board member and a health charity lobbyist.