All Finance articles – Page 470

  • News

    Gordon Brown promises free prescriptions for cancer patients

    2008-09-24T12:01:00Z

    Gordon Brown promised to abolish prescription charges for cancer patients as part of a 'new settlement' focusing on fairness.In what had been described before he spoke as the speech of his life, the prime minister's announcement that he would scrap the charges for cancer patients from April was well received ...

  • Comment

    Paul Dutton on failing NHS foundation trusts

    2008-09-19T09:00:00Z

    The Department of Health this month issued a consultation paper that rules out insolvency for hospital trusts that are failing financially, a move that risks undermining the original concept of what foundation trusts were meant to be and achieve.

  • News

    NHS in Wales 'is improving financial management'

    2008-09-18T13:09:00Z

    There are clear signs that the NHS in Wales is improving the way it manages its finances, the Welsh auditor general has said.

  • News

    NHS failure regime: up to 92 trusts may be culled

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    The Department of Health expects to cull up to six hospital trusts a year under its new failure regime, figures in its impact assessment reveal.The document shows the DH expects to save £200m a year under the plans, which are out for consultation. It focuses on six trusts affected by ...

  • News

    Winning formula for resource allocation

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    The research cited in your article on resource allocation understates the extent to which the existing formula adjusts for age and wealth relative to deprivation. The hospital and community health services formula, for example, allocates more than 10 times as much for people aged 85-plus as it does for those ...

  • News

    Data quality requires careful analysis

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    Your article on the King's Fund's report into variations in primary care trust spending raises several issues. Although the data we used does allow an insight into spending, we warned that a degree of caution should be exercised with the figures. Data quality is an issue and so too is ...

  • News

    NHS Litigation Authority to increase legal fees

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    The NHS Litigation Authority is set to increase the fees for its clinical negligence scheme for trusts next year in the face of rising legal costs and compensation payouts.

  • News

    Whitehall will pay buildings costs on ISTCs

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    The Department of Health has said it intends to pay any buy-back costs for independent sector treatment centres - taking a massive financial burden off primary care trusts.

  • News

    Lord Carter to head up NHS competition panel

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    Lord Carter of Coles is to be the first chair and director of the NHS Co-operation and Competition Panel.

  • News

    Prescription drug marketing comes under debate

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    Organisations representing patients, medical professionals and consumers are calling on the European Commission to rethink proposals to allow drug companies to provide information direct to consumers.

  • News

    Lib Dems unveil plan to slash NHS managers' pay

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    Senior health managers should be forced to reapply for jobs and take pay cuts as part of a public sector cost-cutting drive, the Liberal Democrats proposed at their annual conference in Bournemouth this week.

  • News

    Top-up payments are a lottery

    2008-09-18T09:00:00Z

    I would like to thank HSJ for its coverage on top-up payments. The final decision will have huge implications for the health service. If top-ups were allowed, this would enable patients who can afford it to get rapid access to interventions that would not be normally available to all in ...

  • News

    Shortfall in care home funding

    2008-09-17T11:28:21Z

    An extra £540m is needed to pay for residential care for older people, research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation predicts.

  • News

    Cancer patients cannot afford prescriptions

    2008-09-17T11:25:43Z

    A third of cancer patients do not take their prescribed medicines because they cannot afford the prescription charge. Many do not know that buying prescription prepayment certificates would help with the cost.A survey by Macmillan Cancer Support found that 41 per cent of cancer patients did not know about how ...

  • News

    High Court decision on cancer drug

    2008-09-11T13:21:00Z

    The High Court has overturned a primary care trust's refusal to fund cancer drug Revlimid for a cancer suffer with only months to live.

  • News

    DH publishes plans for failing NHS trusts

    2008-09-11T13:17:00Z

    The Department of Health has published its proposals for managing failing NHS hospitals and trusts.

  • Leader

    Pick and mix accounting clouds surplus predictions

    2008-09-11T09:00:00Z

    The NHS year-end surplus may not be quite as easy to predict as you might think.

  • News

    Surge of acute contracts puts strain on PCTs' spend targets

    2008-09-11T09:00:00Z

    Primary care trusts are battling to stay clear of deficit as their finances come under pressure from a surge in secondary care work.Many PCTs overspent on their commissioning budgets for the first three months of the financial year and some are now looking to make savings in other areas to ...

  • Leader

    No amount of health funding will be an antidote to poverty

    2008-09-11T09:00:00Z

    As the political parties mobilise for the conference season it is tempting to believe there is broad consensus about the future of the NHS. But three debates that go to its heart are raging.

  • News

    Personal health budgets

    2008-09-11T09:00:00Z

    Anna Dixon's article on personal budgets cites US evidence on health savings accounts to suggest recipients of personal health budgets will forego care.