All the latest news from the NHS Confederation conference, including of Jeremy Hunt’s speech.
4.05pm The NHS will expect health and wellbeing boards to prove they can save £1bn by joining up health and social care services next year – £300m more than currently anticipated, HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle has discovered.
NHS England is understood to have identified the larger figure as financial scrutiny on local plans for the government’s better care fund project mounts.
4.00pm In shadow health secretary Andy Burnham’s speech to the NHS Confederation conference earlier today, he warned that the the government’s better care fund is in danger of giving “integration a bad name” and of tipping the NHS over a financial cliff next year.
The shadow health secretary also delegates that allocating the NHS more funding would also not be the “first response” of a Labour government to addressing its difficulties.
3.59pm Hunt says his latest enthusiasm is the possibility of GP skype consulations, but he stresses that worse thing he could do is foist innovations on the NHS by inserting them into the GP contract.
3.56pm Hunt says: “It will be much easier to make the case for an increase in NHS funding if we can show we’ve done everything to eliminate waste”.
3.55pm Responding to a question on primary care, Hunt says there needs to more GPs, but also needs to be “more innovative models of general practice if NHS to meet rising demand”.
3.52pm Hunt says that honouring the 1 per cent pay rise for NHS recommended by the NHS Pay Review Body would resulted in 6,000 redundancies.
3.50pm Responding to audience questions, Hunt says he would love to honour recommendation of the NHS Pay Review Body in full, but he has responsibility to patients to maintain staffing levels.
3.48pm Hunt concludes his speech by praising for the 1.3m NHS staff who are dedicated and committed to putting patients first.
“If we get behind the staff and bring out the best in them the NHS will go from strength to strength,” he adds.
3.44pm In regards to why health was referenced in the Queen’s Speech, Hunt says NHS now needs to focus on implementation.
Earlier today, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham told deleagtes that there would be a day-long debate in the Commons on health on Monday.
3.40pm Hunt says the invitation to CCGs to co-commission primary care, set out last month, is “probably the first step in turning CCGs into accountable organisations.”
He also says that GP contract changes and the better care fund are key in setting out the out of hospital agenda.
3.35pm Hunt says there needs to be a renovation in out of hospital care. He says in theory something there is little disagreeement, but there is a lot of skepticism about whether it can work.
3.34pm Hunt says NHS must make it easier for employees to speak out about safety. “Yes we’ve gotto be better to whistleblowers”, he says but the NHS needs to “create a culture of openess” more widely and be “much bolder in the use of transparency”.
3.32pm Hunt says that the NHS remain sustainable if it is bold in areas of reform. He says the first area of reform should be patient safety.
3.28pm Hunt says there must no turning back on Francis. He adds that unsafe care is also expensive in the long term.
3.20pm: Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to begin his speech at the NHS Confederation. Follow HSJ’s Will Hazell for live twitter coverage.
2.50pm: King’s Fund chief executive Chris Ham tweets: “Norman Lamb and Andy Burnham both argue for single health and care system. Looking forward to hearing what @Jeremy_Hunt wants to see”
2.26pm. HSJ reporter Shaun Lintern tweets: “The Govt wants a blackout on the NHS before the election” Andy Burnham tells staff #NHSpay #confed2014
2.25pm: Coverage of the NHS Confederation conference speech by Jeremy Hunt is coming up.
1.57pm The Jubilee Street Practice in Tower Hamlets, which is facing closure due to funding changes, issued this message ahead of a protest march that staff at the practice have planned for 2.30pm today:
“Dear valued Colleagues and patients, today, we are marching for our local surgeries. We have shown what it means to stand together. I am so proud that we are able to show the nation who and what we are and what people who work together can achieve.
“This is also about the heart of the NHS. It is all about values. The values at the heart of the NHS and of our nation. What successive governments have done is put corporate values at the heart of our NHS, replacing a language of collaboration, compassion and service for the good of all with the corporate language of competition, service delivery and productivity.
“When you set out to achieve something, you first decide on your core values. This determines your goal or function and the structures follow. In the NHS today, this is all the wrong way round. Structures come first and values have to lag behind and fit in somewhere. This is why GPs in East London and across the country are in the position we find ourselves in today- defending and justifying our very existence because the Secretary of State hasn’t the power or possibly even the will to act on our behalf, despite the evident justice of our cause.
“So let us hold our heads up high and continue to fight to tell the public what is really happening to their NHS so that the values we treasure can be put back at the very heart of this much loved and fantastic institution.”
1.50pm The country’s largest clinical commissioning group aims to skip common procurement procedures when awarding new contracts for community services, under proposals expected to test guidance on the controversial section 75 regulations.
Under the proposal, urgent care services, including GP ouut of hours services, would be tendered and multiple providers would be appointed to deliver continuing services under a framework agreement.
However, the bulk of community services, including community hospitals, would be awarded without competition, the paper on the CCG’s community services strategy said.
1.27pm EXCLUSIVE: The rate NHS staff can claim for travel expenses is to be reduced by almost 20 per cent, which NHS Employers estimates would save the service £20m annually, HSJ has learned.
NHS Employers has confirmed the rate for travel reimbursements will be cut from 67p to 54p per mile from 1 July. The change is being made under a deal with NHS trade unions agreed last year, which came into effect on 1 April.
Under the deal, travel expenses are being tracked and compared every six months to estimates by the AA Motoring Costs guide. It has recently reported a reduction, due to a downward trend in car insurance cost, and vehicles’ loss of value.
The changes apply to more than one million staff under the Agenda for Change pay framework, but do not cover medical staff, who have a separate arrangement.
1.23pm More news from the NHS Confederation conference, Health Education England is planning a back to work scheme for GPs to help them return to the NHS.
Speaking at the conference today, HEE’s director of strategy and workforce planning Jo Lenaghan said the organisation was working with the Royal College of General Practitioners to try and come up with a scheme.
1.20pm In case you missed it, care minister Norman Lamb earlier today called for a new “legal obligation” to ensure health and social care commissioners pool their budgets as part of a significant expansion of his better care fund project.
The Liberal Democrat minister also wants local health and council commissioners to pool their entire budgets, he told the NHS Confederation conference in Liverpool.
Mr Lamb said he was pressing for these measures to be written into his party’s manifesto, as it gears up for the general election next year.
1.12pm Burham says the Health and Social Care Act 2012 would be removed in the first Queen’s Speech of a Labour government. “It has got to go,” he adds.
1.08pm Burnham says the time has come to move on from some of the old divides that have held the NHS back, such as GPs vs hospitals and primary vs secondary care.
1.07pm Burnham says he says the NHS should be be the preferred provider of services, and he would like to district general hospitals reinvented as an integrated care providers.
1.03pm Burnham speaks of a “journey towards full integration… towards a single budget”. Earlier today care minister Norman Lamb told delegates at the NHS Confederation conference that he would like there to be a “legal obligation” for health and social care budgets to be pooled.
12.56pm Burnham says integration should be “all or nothing”. He says fears the better care fund will “give integration a bad name”. He says care minister Norman Lamb’s speech to the conference earlier today was at odds with what the government has been doing.
12.53pm Burnham says cuts to social care, general practice and mental health services have “placed unpredecded pressure on the most expensive end of the health and care system”.
12.50pm Burnham says there will be a whole day dedicated to health at the House of Commons on Moday.
12.49pm Burnham criticises the goverment for the NHS not appearing on the Queen’s Speech. He said in the next year, with silence on the NHS, the service will be “sliding ever closer to the edge of the cliff”.
12.45pm Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham is about to speak at the NHS Confederation conference.
12.25pm The Independent reports that private contractors have pocketed hundreds of millions of pounds of profits in the past four years by exploiting private finance deals, including in the NHS.
11.18am: The office of Phillip Lee MP, a GP, has confirmed to HSJ he will run for election as Commons health committee chair.Meanwhile, Sarah Wollaston, also a former GP, who is currently on the committee, has said she will stand, according to the BBC. The vote will take place later in June.
11am: The Telegraph ran a story overnight on Norman Lamb’s plan for increased pooled budgets to be in his party’s manifesto for the general election.
10.15am Health officials cannot rule out that other babies might have been infected by the nutritional food product which has been “strongly linked” to the death of one baby and the illness of 14 others.
The baby died from blood poisoning on June 1 after being infected by a suspected contaminated drip, a spokeswoman for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust said.
10.09am The rate NHS staff can claim for travel expenses is to be reduced by almost 20 per cent, which NHS Employers estimates would save the service £20m annually, HSJ has learned.
NHS Employers has confirmed the rate for travel reimbursements will be cut from 67p to 54p per mile from 1 July. The change is being made under a deal with NHS trade unions agreed last year, which came into effect on 1 April.
9.58am The NHS will expect health and wellbeing boards to prove they can save £1bn by joining up health and social care services next year - £300m more than currently anticipated, HSJ’s sister title Local Government Chronicle has discovered.
NHS England is understood to have identified the larger figure as financial scrutiny on local plans for the government’s Better Care project mounts.
9.52am Norman Lamb has now finished his speech and is having a panel discussion with Steve Kell, chair of Bassetlaw Clinical Commissioning Group and Local Government Association chief executive Carolyn Downs.
Steve Kell says he would be concerned about a legal requirement to pool health and care funding.
9.43am Mr Lamb says he’d like the Liberal Democrat manifesto at the next election to include a legal obligation to pool health and social care funding.
9.39am Mr Lamb says enthusiasm for better care fund plans has led to the pooling of £5.2bn, but that there is understandable “apprehension” about the project.
9.35am Michael White’s latest politics column is now online. This week Michael discusses the absence of health in the Queen’s Speech and Simon Stevens comments last week on local hospitals.
9.24am HSJ’s Judith Welikala is live tweeting Mr Lamb’s speech from the conference - you can follow her at @JudithWelikala.
9.17am Mr Lamb says funding for the NHS is going to be “one of the most pressing issues” for whoever forms the government after the 2015 general election.
9.15am Care minister Norman Lamb has taken to the podium for the first plenary of today’s NHS Confederation conference.
8.30am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live. We start the day with a comment piece from John Murray, director of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance, on how the specialised commissioning could push the purchaser-provider split to destruction.
No comments yet