- Specialised commissioning budget soars as commissioning board’s power increases
- Special administrator recommends splitting up South London Healthcare Trust
- NHS 111 may not lead to urgent care savings
16.37 The government intends to bring forward emergency legislation after apparent mistakes were made in the procedure used to section mental health patients, Jeremy Hunt has announced. Only four out of the 10 strategic health authorities did not validate approval for the orders, as they are required to do under the Mental Health Act 1983.
16.20 HSJ can reveal that the specialised commissioning budget for 2013-14 will be £12bn - 41 per cent bigger than for 2011-12, after more services, such as radiotherapy, all chemotherapy drugs and almost all vascular services were redefined as ‘specialised’. It means that services previously commissioned locally by primary care trusts will in future be commissioned centrally by the NHS Commissioning Board, via its local area teams. Interestingly, a board spokeswoman has emphasised that the move to centralise will do away with controversial “postcode lotteries”, where patients in some parts of the country are not entitled to services freely available elsewhere.
13:06 Our story on the special administrator’s recommendations for South London Healthcare Trust is now up. The report itself is also online now, an interesting point is the criticism of the previous management for not tackling big “key strategic challenges such as overall medical productivity”.(pg.34) Much of the talk at the Foundation Trust Network last week was on the medical productivity issue.
10.35: Ben Clover Tweets: “In brief, Lew+G’wich merge, Lew A+E dwngrde, Bromley goes either King’s or procurement, Bexley bcms multiprvdr Bluewater style health campus.”
10.24am Errors made by medical staff when caring for pregnant women have cost the NHS £3.1 billion over the last 10 years, figures show.
10.16am Ben Clover adds: “The press release is embargoed until 10.30am. But if you want to get a flavour then, sorry to keep saying this, our briefing was about right.” Read his briefing on South London Healthcare here.
10.12am Stand by for an announcement on the future of South London Healthcare. Ben Clover tweets: “Matthew Kershaw’s press conference on failure regime/South London’s Healthcare Trust to start in a second. Last plug for our briefing on it” Follow: @BenClover for the latest
9.59am In case you missed it late on Friday, a report by Sheffield University analysts has raised fears that the NHS 111 non-emergency phone service will not lead to savings on urgent and emergency care.
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