A round-up of the rest of today’s health news including a furious row between Jeremy Hunt and former CQC chair Baroness Young
2.43pm Lisa Rodrigues, who retires as chief executive of Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust next year, has decided to publically detail her own struggle with a mental illness.
Ms Rodrigues’ hope is that by “coming out”, she can help play a role in debunking the perception she says is shared by many NHS staff, including NHS managers, that people suffering from mental illness are unable to live a full and productive life.
So this is my Personal Best, which I dedicate to World Mental Health Day 2013. I’m coming out.
She also wanted to draw attention to World Mental Health Day on 10 October.
1.18pm In case you missed this earlier, a furious row broke out last night between health secretary Jeremy Hunt and the former chair of the Care Quality Commission Baroness Young.
Baroness Young rebutted Jeremy Hunt’s claim that she had been put under pressure to keep quiet about poor care by a Labour minister.
After a robust exchange and neither party prepared to concede, Baroness Young left the room saying she was likely to suffer an aneurysm if she stayed any longer.
A full transcript is available here.
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12:39pm A full transcript of David Cameron is now available. The extracts which involved the NHS are below.
Camderon on the Coalition’s record on the NHS: “Who protected spending on the NHS? Not Labour – us. Who started the Cancer Drugs Fund? Not Labour – us.
“And by the way – who presided over Mid Staffs…patients left for so long without water, they were drinking out of dirty vases…people’s grandparents lying filthy and unwashed for days. Who allowed that to happen?
Yes, it was Labour…and don’t you dare lecture anyone on the NHS again.”
Cameron on: clamping down on health tourism: “And when the Immigration Bill comes before Parliament, we will make sure some simple and fair things, that should have always been the case, are now set in stone.
“If you are not entitled to our free National Health Service, you should pay for it.”
12.30pm Drug companies wanting access to a new NHS patient database should be forced to make their clinical study reports data available to relevant bodies in return, an influential Conservative MP has told HSJ.
Sarah Wollaston said she supported the new care.data project “in principle” but called for a block on the extraction of confidential patient data from GP records until a range of “ethical and legal issues” surrounding the project were resolved.
12:28pm The Department of Health paid outsourcing giant Capita £108m to run the NHS Choices website, including £25m in additional charges, HSJ can reveal.
The DH paid Capita £108.2m over the life of the contract, which was just under five years, according to information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. That included £83.5m of fixed fees and £24.7m in “change requests”, which are charges for changes to the original contract.
12:06pm CAMERON ADDRESS SUMMARY: The prime minister finished to a standing ovation after around 50 minutes.
The speech had precious little on health policy save an attack on Labour for presiding over the Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust scandal.
“Don’t you [Labour] dare lecture anyone on the NHS ever again,” he said.
The speech contained all the well trailed buzz phrases including “profit not a dirty word” and that the Conservatives wanted to build a “land of opportunity”.
Mr Cameron set out his stall for the 2015 election centering it around the message that it is the Conservatives not Labour who can be trusted with the economy.
11:57am Cameron on 2015 election: “We will be fighting head heart and soul for majority Conservative government because that is what our country needs.”
11:51am Cameron: “Let’s hear it for social workers who do such a vital job in our country.”
11:46am Cameron on education: “A land of opportunity means educating all our children.”
He salutes Gove: “He has this huge belief in excellence. More students studying proper science, ended dumbing down in exams, for the first time children are learning the new language of computer coding. “
He goes on to riff on the benefits of free schools.
11:43am Cameron on HS2: “This country has been too London centric for too long. That is why we need a new railway”
He talks about spreading the economic benefits to the north including making Blackpool a hub for shale gas industry.
11:41am You need to cut the deficit to keep mortgage rate low, you need to cut people’s taxes. We have already cut the taxes for 25 million hard working people.
“We are Tories, we believe in low taxes and we will keep cutting the taxes of hard working people in our country.
11:32am Cameron: “It is business not government that creates jobs. There is no short cut to a land of opportunity, You build it business by business, school by school…This party, at it’s heart, is about a bigger society not a bigger state.”
11:28am Cameron: “We need to run a surplus so that we fix the roof when the sun is shining. To abandon deficit reduction now would be to throw away all the work we have done.
“Labour has learnt nothing from the crisis it created.”
11.26am Cameron says Labour built “the casino economy meets the welfare society.”
11:24am Cameron on Thatcher: “She was the greatest peace time prime minister our country has ever had.”
11.20am Cameron now talking about devolution: “The decision is for Scotland to make but I believe there is an unanswerable case for the United Kingdom.”
A message to Scotland: “We want you to stay. We want us to stick together. The nations as one are kingdom united. “
11:17am Some people said NHS was not safe in our hands. He says it is citing that the Conservatives protected NHS funding; started the cancer drugs fund while it was Labour who oversaw the Mids Staffs scandal.
Cameron to Labour on Mid Staffs: “Don’t you dare lecture anyone on the NHS ever again. ”
11:14am Cameron tells conference: “In May 2010 the needle on the gage was at crisis point but three and half years later we are beginning to tune the corner.
“We are not there yet, not by a long way, but my friends we are on our way.”
Thanks business community for its help so. As trailed before the speech, the prime minister will present the Conservatives as the party of business.
He says: “We will build a land of opportunity in our country today”.
11:11am David Cameron begins by saying Conservatives are “on the side of hard working people”.
11:05am David Cameron is about to address the Conservative party conference. Follow this blog for real time updates.
10:47am A row erupted last night when the former chair of the Care Quality Commission rebutted Jeremy Hunt’s claim that she had been put under pressure to keep quiet about poor care by a Labour minister.
In his centrepiece Conservative party conference speech yesterday afternoon, the health secretary lambasted his Labour shadow Andy Burnham for “covering up” poor care during his time as health secretary.
10:29am The Guardian also carries a short news story saying the prime minister David Cameron wants Simon Stevens as the next chief executive of NHS England.
The PM recently invited Mr Stevens to Downing Street, the story claims, although it doesn’t say whether Mr Stevens accepted the invitation.
Mr Stevens is currently executive vice president at US healthcare giant UnitedHealth, and previously served as an advisor to the Blair government.
10:26am The Daily Telegraph reports from the Conservative Party conference where chancellor George Osborne was asked whether the current ring-fence on health and aid spending would continue if the Tories won the general election in 2015.
He is reported as saying: “We may go with the same decisions we took in this parliament; they were driven by our values.”
10:21am The Guardian’s Conservative Party conference diary awards its “good day” slot to health secretary Jeremy Hunt this morning.
“The health secretary’s decision to beef up the NHS regulator also made Labour look bad”, says columnist and HSJ contributor Michael White.
The paper also carries a brief summary of Mr Hunt’s speech on page 10, focusing on the announcement that the Care Quality Commission will be made legally independent of ministers.
10:17am Another recap from yesterday, Jeremy Hunt used his speech at the Conservative party conference to announce the Care Quality Commission will be given Bank of England-style statutory independence to prevent it facing political interference.
HSJ understands those involved in the development of the policy believe it will prevent the CQC delaying the publication of “uncomfortable” statistics such as its risk register charting individual hospital trusts’ difficulties in the run up to polling day.
10:15am In case you missed this yesterday afternoon, the chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare Trust is stepping down.
Mark Davies will leave the £940m-turnover trust at the end of this year to take up a new role with the NHS Trust Development Authority.
10:11am The new chief inspector of general practice will use his role to reform primary care and develop integrated services, and to call for additional funding where it is needed, he has told HSJ.
Steve Field, speaking on his first day in post at the Care Quality Commission, said he was taking on a far-reaching role which stretches beyond checking basic quality standards.
8:50am: How to meet meet the growing demand for services with constrained resources is a huge challenge for radiology − but one being tackled at North West London Hospitals Trust through innovative thinking, new roles and changing practices.
Today on HSJ’s commissioning channel, Michele Marshall and George Blair look at the changes the trust has implemented in its radiology team to ensure it was able to do more with less.
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