The essential stories and talking points from Tuesday
- Today’s must know: Trust chief outlines plans for A&E performance ‘surge’
- Today’s talking point: Cowper’s Cut – A Brief History Of The Force, by Jeremy Hunt
- Today’s inspiration: ‘My belief in the NHS has been strengthened’
Bouncing back
Earlier this month, University Hospitals of Leicester Trust boss John Adler sent a message to staff criticising the trust’s poor A&E performance and warning staff it could not continue (“Our performance is very poor and in some recent weeks it has actually been the worst in the country,” he wrote).
His latest email to the trust’s employees has outlined how the trust is going to turn things around.
Mr Adler has set out plans for the “September surge”, to begin on Friday.
The “surge” includes increasing the number of senior doctors working overnight in the A&E and ensuring “the rota is fully populated”. Managers will also monitor the emergency department more to so the “four hour window is maximised”.
In the message, Mr Adler also thanked staff for their efforts so far. He said: “As an executive team we have been gratified by the level of engagement and the willingness of colleagues to do things differently in order to improve things for patients. This is a good start but we need to push on.”
New child mortality plan
The way child deaths are investigated in England is to be overhauled following failure to consistently investigate them and share learning across services.
The Department of Health is taking over responsibility for local child death overview panels and a new database of child mortality is being set up.
The database is being established as part of NHS England’s wider child mortality programme to tackle the UK’s child death rate, which is among the highest in Europe.
Despite a legal requirement for all child deaths to be reviewed by local CDOPs, HSJ has learned there are concerns at the DH and NHS England that the panels are not sharing vital information and analysis locally or nationally.
A review for the government in 2016 concluded that responsibility for CDOPs should shift from the Department for Education to the DH and the development of a database should be accelerated.
NHS England has launched a £1.5m procurement to develop the database, which will be commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership.
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