Daily Insight: Cash to cool a ‘hot’ system

Systems struggling with mental health bed pressures could be in line to receive money for beds from a capital fund announced by NHS England, the national mental health director has announced, as part of an exclusive interview with HSJ tackling topics of funding, out of area placements and quality.

Claire Murdoch told us the inpatient system was “running very hot” with bed occupancy topping 95 per cent throughout 2022 and that some areas were particularly struggling with length of stay and accident and emergency breaches.

She said funds would not come from ”within the mental health service budget” and they would be used to “help address any pressures where we think the answer is more of either beds or other urgent and emergency care which has a capital need.”

The money is set to be spent ”where there is a particular need”, with Ms Murdoch confirming there was “no blanket approach” to allocation.

It comes amid a steep rise in patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&Es, as revealed by an HSJ investigation last month.

The interview also tackled topics of mental health funding and eliminating out of area placements, which Ms Murdoch said was “within the realms of possibility”.

Cyber strike’s ‘very dangerous’ repercussions

Thousands of clinicians have been left unable to access patients’ notes and histories following a serious cyber attack on an NHS IT supplier, HSJ understands.

A “system outage” of Carenotes – one of the most commonly used electronic patient record systems by NHS mental health trusts – has affected at least nine trusts and will reduce access to vulnerable patients’ records for at least three weeks. 

Carenotes is one of the most commonly used EPR systems by NHS mental health trusts and is part of the suite of products affected by a cyber attack on Advanced last week.

In an email to staff, Oxford Health Foundation Trust chief executive Nick Broughton said the trust had been advised to prepare for “a system outage that could continue… possibly longer than three weeks for Carenotes… 

“The impact on our teams and services has been, and will continue to be, considerable in the days ahead.”

One source at the trust described staff’s restricted access to patients’ records as “very dangerous” as it means clinicians face making decisions about patients based on incomplete access to their data.