HSJ Live: rolling news and information

16.07 The number of waits for treatment for more than 26 and 52 weeks has fallen to the lowest level since records began, declares the DH. “There could be no clearer sign that the NHS is taking patients’ experience seriously,” says Jeremy Hunt.

13.15 Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has appointed a strong supporter of David Cameron as his special political adviser for policy, HSJ has been told.

12.35 Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts forecasting a net surplus for 2012-13 of 1.2bn. Would be a fall of more than £400m on previous year.

NHS trust sector forecasting surplus of just £71m, or 0.2 per cent of turnover.

12.25pm Only five NHS acute trusts were forecasting 2012-13 deficit at the end of June, Department of Health’s first quarterly report for the year shows. They were South London Healthcare (forecast deficit: £54m), Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals (£40m), Mid Yorkshire Hospitals (£26m), Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals (£19m), and North West London Hospitals (£21m).

12.16pm BREAKING The DH has launched its quarter one finance report. It predicts only one PCT, North Yorks and Yorkshire, will end the year in deficit

Acute foundation trusts are planning to increase staff numbers by more than 2,500 this financial year, latest figures released to HSJ show. The data, showing planned workforce cuts will not come into force until the later years of the NHS efficiency drive comes from acute FTs’ latest three-year plans.

Professional organisations and interest groups could take on a formal role producing clinical commissioning guidance - potentially sidestepping the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

Could the members of the Shelford group’s position as the NHS’s most financially powerful trusts be under threat? See Sally Gainsbury’s finance column

A former barrister has been brought in to oversee the investigations into Jimmy Savile’s activities at Stoke Mandeville, Broadmoor and Leeds General Infirmary, HSJ reports.