All Finance articles – Page 509
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News
Hewitt defends NHS reform
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt told the New Health Network yesterday that balancing high-quality care with tight budgets was the NHS's greatest challenge.She said the increasing cost of new medical technologies and drugs and the rising expectations of patients would have to be met. Ms Hewitt acknowledged that reform is 'never ...
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News
Demand management ineffective and costs rise under PBR
There is a lack of evidence around which demand management schemes make payment by results more effective.Research by the York University's Centre for Health and Public Services Management and Centre for Health Economics also found the system has increased the scope for disagreement between trusts and primary care trusts over ...
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News
Nicholson to give evidence to spending enquiry
NHS chief executive David Nicholson, acting permanent secretary Hugh Taylor and finance director Richard Douglas are to give evidence to the Commons health committee on 23 November as part of its inquiry into NHS expenditure. Health secretary Patricia Hewitt will face the committee on 29 November.
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News
Granger tops NHS earners list
The average salary of the 12 highest earners in the NHS is £183,000, according to an analysis of senior executives' pay in the public sector for 2004-05.The figures from the Taxpayers' Alliance show the top two NHS earners are Connecting for Health chief executive Richard Granger, with a £285,000 salary, ...
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News
Minister puts onus on trusts to negotiate unbundled tariff
Primary care and acute trusts need to negotiate their own ways to unbundle the payment by results tariff, health minister Lord Warner said as he launched the 'road test' of next year's tariff.
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News
Burden of unbundling the tariff falls on quality of local data
This week's 'road testing' of the payment by results tariff for 2007-08 will, the Department of Health hopes, result in considerably less noise than the late and broken one released in January. The DoH says it is not looking for any comment or complaint about what the tariff should or ...
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News
Troubleshooter drops in to save PCT with £43m debt
A primary care trust with a cumulative debt of £43m has drafted in a troubleshooter to examine 'new management options', including bringing in expertise from the private sector or other NHS bodies.
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News
Payment by results tariff launched
The Department of Health has published the test version of the 2007-08 national tariff. The overall uplift in prices is 2.5 per cent, net of 2.5 per cent efficiency savings.NHS chief executive David Nicholson says trusts should use the latest version to model the impact of the increased tariff.To ...
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Comment
Reform and instability
'Why instability is inevitable' - Simon Stevens' article on the NHS and the J curve (page 19, 19 October) reminded me of a classic false syllogism: 'It always gets worse before it gets better.It certainly is getting worse. Therefore it will get better.'
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Comment
Turnaround consultants
I am sure Malcolm Lowe-Lauri's opinion column on management consultants must have struck a chord with PCT colleagues who have been subjected to the turnaround process in recent months (page 17, 5 October). Although the consultants input has been valuable in some areas the benefits were not apparent in many ...
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News
NHS campaigners to hold mass demonstration outside Parliament
Protesters are to march on Westminster tomorrow to demonstrate against NHS 'cuts'. Health unions and community groups including the Trades Union Congress and Keep Our NHS Public plan to lobby MPs at the end of the protest. To download the announcement, click ...
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News
NHS redundancy figures revealed
NHS chief executive David Nicholson has published figures showing that 900 compulsory redundancies were made in the NHS in the first half of this financial year.The vast majority of those were in managerial and administrative roles and under a quarter in clinical posts.To see the figures click ...
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News
Lansley slams PFI 'lunacy'
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley has described hospital private finance initiatives as 'complete lunacy' after government responses to his parliamentary questions showed that the NHS will pay private sector contractors £53bn for hospitals worth only £8bn. Mr Lansley is calling for a 'fundamental review' of how the NHS accesses capital ...
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News
New pay-off packages to reflect length of service
New redundancy and retirement packages based on length of service rather than age have been agreed by the Department of Health.
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Comment
Sue Slipman on foundation trusts and the healthcheck ratings
'Having strengthened their financial management without comprising service quality, foundation trusts are now in a position to step up their investment in providing first class patient care'
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News
PbR 'fundamentally flawed' says coding chief
The current system of payment by results is 'fundamentally flawed and unacceptable' the head of the Professional Association of Clinical Coders warned last week.
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News
Call to scrap funding formula
The NHS funding formula is based on an untested scientific premise and should be scrapped, the chief economic advisor to the Department of Health was told last week.
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HSJ Knowledge
Legal Briefing: resolving payment disputes between PCTs and foundation trusts
As the NHS becomes accustomed to the legally-binding contracts between primary care trusts and foundation trusts, the main pressure points are beginning to emerge.
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Comment
Efficiency indicators do not tell the story behind the numbers
The comprehensive spending review is no longer the distant event it once seemed - the coming financial squeeze makes a numbers game out of the next 18 months or so.
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News
Efficiency savings costed at £2.2bn
The Department of Health is to expand the number of productivity indicators on which trusts are compared as the first set of figures revealed the NHS could save £2.2bn a year if it improved its efficiency.