5.22pm Dame Fiona Caldicott reflects in the Guardian on why there are so few women in leadership positions when the number of women entering medical school has reached 70 per cent.
4.58pm The Wellcome Collection has launched a public health archive that covers London from 1878 to1973 and gives a borough by borough insight into Londoners’ health demographic.
4.15pm The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Royal College of Physicians have responded to the GMC’s Shape of Training Review.
Dr Simon Newell, Vice President for Training and Assessment at RCPCH described the recommendations as “a bold blueprint for the future training of doctors” but added that a number of areas in the report needed clarification, most notably funding.
President of the RCP Sir Richard Thompson welcomed the generalist approach to training but said he was concerned that “no immediate action is being suggested to fix the current crisis in acute medicine.”
He added: “The proposed changes are five years away and there is a risk of generating planning blight that would delay making the urgent changes that are necessary now while we wait for the implementation of the new plans.”
3.47pm Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Hospitals Foundation Trust chief executive Andrew Foster has been tweeting from a presentation about deep vein thrombosis treatments.
@andrewkfoster Great presentation by Prof Martin Dennis about reducing DVTs in stroke patients using intermittent pneumatic compression
@andrewkfoster IPC results in 33 per cent less DVTs and 14 per cent fewer deaths in stroke patients. Impressive.
3.24pm Conservative MP for Hereford and South Hertfordshire Jesse Norman uses his debut column in The Telegraph to argue that the NHS is “institutionally ageist” and that older people should be put “at the heart of health funding”.
He argues that the hospitals focused on in the Keogh report are those in rural areas with higher numbers of older patients.
3.08pm Further upheaval at a southern trust now the chief executive has resigned. Read the story here to find out who.
2.48pm A report by the GMC on the future of medical training recommends that doctors should have broad specialties and be given the chance to change specialty throughout their careers to meet changing health demands. One other key recommendation is that full registration should be given to junior doctors at the point of graduating from medical school. You can read the full report here.
2.32pm HSJ’s editor-in-chief looks at what we might expect from Simon Stevens heading up NHS England.
2.18pm The GMC’s clearing of Dame Barbara Hakin has prompted strong feeling from some of our readers:
When will the NHS start to tackle this inappropriate behaviour, which may not be ‘bullying’ under the definition. It is not developing an open, transparent and supportive culture. Have we really learned from the Francis report? You just have to look at the Staff Attitude Survey figures last year to see that this is a real issue in the NHS. The staff have just had enough of this inappropriate behaviour, which we know affects patient care and quality.
When is a bully not a bully? When the definition is manipulated to protect self interested groups. The reality of managing services under a period of severe austerity, with real terms cuts in funding makes this type of behaviour quite normal in very abnormal circumstances. Politicians are setting up managers and clinicians to fail based on an ideologically driven agenda.
2.09pm The Daily Mail coverage of the complaints handling review findings released yesterday focuses on the care nurses provide. The paper reports that ‘Nurses are ignoring desperately ill patients and their relatives when they need help’.
2.07pm A British surgeon has warned that swaddling may damage a baby’s hips, the Daily Mail reports. Professor Nicholas Clarke of Southampton University Hospital says there is growing evidence that swaddling can lead to hip abnormalities.
1.56pm Barrie Brown, the national officer for the country’s largestunion Unitehas accused Jeremy Hunt of “a flagrant waste of taxpayers’ money” in response to the Lewisham Hospital appeal.
He added: “He [Hunt] needs to give a public assurance that he won’t be repeating this ideologically driven fiasco at other hospitals in England. He should be putting patient care before Tory dogma.”
1.45pm The Times reports that the Clywd/Hart complaints handling review concluded there is a “delay, deny and defend” attitude prevailing around patient complaints. The paper focused on the recommendation that all patients have a feedback form by their bedside.
The paper’s take on Monitor’s investigation into smaller trusts suggests that ‘dozens of small hospitals face closure’.
1.30pm Elsewhere on HSJ today:
Raised efficiency assumptions could have an impact on small and medium sized trusts’ ability to provide good quality patient care, Monitor has warned.
It came as the regulator confirmed it is to investigate the challenges faced by small hospitals across the country.
1.19pm Andy Burnham, Labour Shadow Health Secretary, describes the Lewisham ruling as a “humiliation” for Jeremy Hunt.
He said: “This decision is a humiliation for Jeremy Hunt and raises major questions about his judgement. Instead of graciously accepting the first Court ruling, he has squandered thousands of taxpayers’ money trying to protect his own pride and defend the indefensible. He is diminished by this ruling and has let down the NHS.”
He added: “Today, the Secretary of State must accept this decision, apologise unreservedly to the people of Lewisham and give an unequivocal commitment that their A&E will not now be down-graded.”
1.12pm Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, has responded to the Court of Appeal’s ruling. He said: “This is a great result. I was confident of our case but I am still very relieved. This is another victory for each and every individual who signed a petition, who wrote to the Secretary of State and who marched through the streets of Lewisham. Together we have fought to assert the right of the people who use and deliver health services to have a real say in their future. And we have won.”
1.07pm Here’s the full story: A judge has rejected the Department of Health’s appeal against a judicial review decision that halted the downgrade of Lewisham Hospital.
An appeal court judge this afternoon ruled the original decision by Mr Justice Silber was correct in overturning the government’s decision to reduce services at the trust.
1.01pm A few tweets in response to the Court of Appeal ruling on Lewisham Hospital:
@euanmackay Watch now as the govt scrambles to implement law to retrospectively make Jeremy Hunt’s breaking of the law ok.
@rosslydall Court of Appeal took just 10 mins to reject case for downgradingLewisham hospital. @andyburnhammp: “This is a humiliation for Jeremy Hunt”
12.54pm The procurement process to outsource a revamped NHS Choices website is to miss a deadline set out by health minister Lord Howe for retendering to begin in 2013, HSJ has learned.
Lord Howe gave a personal assurance to private providers this spring that the procurement exercise for the website at the centre of efforts to give patients more control over their care would begin “later this calendar year” - but board papers published last week said the exercise was now slated to begin in April 2014.
12.37pm NHS England’s interim deputy chief executive Dame Barbara Hakin has been cleared of acting in a “bullying” and unprofessional manner by the General Medical Council, HSJ can reveal.
Dame Barbara – who is also the organisation’s chief operating officer - was accused of disregarding patient safety in a drive to ensure trusts met performance targets during her time as chief executive of the East Midlands strategic health authority in 2009.
12.27pm Judge finds that Jeremy Hunt’s decision to partly close services at Lewisham Hospital was unlawful. Story to follow.
12.07pm Private hospitals need to be as transparent in sharing their failings as NHS hospitals according to Colin Leys in the Guardian.
11.48am Dominic Dodd, the preferred candidate of the government to be chair of Monitor, has withdrawn his application after the Commons health committee refused to back him.
The chair of the Royal Free Foundation Trust was announced earlier this month as the government’s preferred candidate for the job. However, the committee of MPs voted against the appointment following a pre-appointment hearing.
11.46am The Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland is reporting a 35 per cent rise in complaints against its members with a 45 per cent increase in GP complaints but a decrease in complaints against hospital doctors.
11.28am The Telegraph is carrying an announcement that Jeremy Hunt’s father died after a short illness on Friday.
11.20am Seven per cent of people with schizophrenia are in employment compared to a 71 per cent national average prompting former Mental Health Minister Paul Burstow MP and SANE to call for better commissioning in support services.
11.00am The Health and Social Care Information Centre has published new statistics on hospital mortality for 2012-13. The figures measure deaths associated with hospitalisation in England over the past financial year.
It found seven trusts had a higher than expected Standardised Hospital Mortality Indicator than expected, 17 had a lower score.
10.46am Here are some of our reader comments on Hunt’s concerns over NHS managers’ pay as reported yesterday
If Mr Hunt wanted to have a pop - how about the number of £500-1000/day consultants floating around?
Does this include Simon Stevens? On the other hand the NHS England staffing structures do border on the ludicrous.
It would appear that Mr Hunt has forgot that the NHS is no longer a public service. Yes, it is commissioned with public money but an increasing number of private provider organisations are ‘winning’ contracts in place of NHS-run services. Does Mr Hunt suggest capping the salaries of senior staff in Virgin Health, Serco and CareUK? Why stop there, why not cap city bonuses too!
Obviously all these comments are objective and unbiased and not from management staff………the main issue is what is fair and vfm for the British taxpayer in terms of quality management in a publically funded system. I don’t know the answer but surely we have enough information and data to make an assessment by relevant experts.
Hard on the heels of the Department’s already discredited ‘health tourism’ claims, this latest attack from Mr Hunt does indeed smack of distraction from more serious matters.
If the Secretary of State is really serious about not wanting to jeopardise public confidence in the NHS, he might just allow the odd day to go by without publicly criticising the service and its management.
10.30am A legal battle over plans to cut services at a successful hospital reached the Court of Appeal on Monday.
Despite travel disruption, supporters of Lewisham Hospital in south east London filled a courtroom for a challenge by the government against a ruling that health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s move to downgrade the emergency department and maternity services was “unlawful”.
10.06am New figures for health inequalities have been published today in Scotland. The chief statistician’s Long-term Monitoring of Health Inequalities report shows the “highest level of relative inequality” can be found in alcohol deaths for those aged 45 to 74, although the death rate had fallen in this area. It also shows that the death rate for coronoary heart disease fell by 61 per cent for those in the same age range over the period 1997 to 2011.
10.02am The Department of Health gave the NHS’s new property company a £100m working capital loan last summer amid concerns of a potential cash flow risk, it has emerged.
HSJ has also learned that the DH and NHS Property Services Ltd are now in negotiations over a new arrangement to enable the property company to access capital if necessary.
7.10am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live, the easy way to follow the stories and opinion appearing on hsj.co.uk as they go live.
In Resource Centre today, Aimee Aldersley explains how an apprentice scheme at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust is finding work for unemployed people under 25, with high success rates paving the way for the model to be rolled out elsewhere. She explains here how to get apprenticeships right.
And in our Leadership channel, David Archer and Alex Cameron say that at a time when the NHS is under fire for lack of collaboration, the aviation industry points the way to better joined up working and safety standards.
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