Government reshuffle continues following Jeremy Hunt’s reappointment as health secretary yesterday

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5.19pm Catching up on the events of the day? Here’s HSJ’s new Executive Summary - the perfect way to catch up on what you may have missed.

4.07pm Here’s what Mr Freeman tweeted earlier:

4.05pm Some more news on ministerial appointments at the DH - George Freeman is sticking around.

12.28pm The Care Quality Commission has rated the Circle-run Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre as ‘good’. 

The privately operated treatment centre received the rating following an inspection which took place on 27 and 28 January.

The centre’s surgery service - which deals with orthopaedic, gynaecology and general surgery - was rated as ‘outstanding’ overall, while outpatients and diagnostic imaging was rated as ‘good’ and termination of pregnancy was rated as ‘requires improvement’.

The CQC said it found areas of outstanding practice, including the centre’s ‘stop the line’ initiative, where any staff member can stop activity if they feel patient safety may have been compromised leading to the immediate escalation and resolution of that issue.

However it also highlighted areas where it had to improve. For example it said the service needed to ensure that medication administration records in the termination of pregnancy service were legible and written in accordance with GMC guidance.

The CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, Sir Mike Richards, said: “We found The Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre was providing a good service to its patients overall. Our inspectors witnessed a number of areas of outstanding practice and those working at the service were seen to be dedicated and caring and morale was high.

“While there were clearly many areas of good practice, there were also some areas for improvement and we have told the trust where it needs to make changes. The trust’s leadership knows what it must now do to ensure those improvements take place and our inspectors will return to check on progress at the trust in the future.”

Helen Tait, the centre’s general manager, said: “We’re delighted with this report: patients in Nottingham can be sure they are in safe hands.

“Surgery is the core of our work. We carry out about 30,000 surgery procedures a year. So to receive an ‘outstanding’ for this service is a huge vote of confidence from inspectors. We understand we’re also one of a handful of hospitals in the country to receive ‘outstanding’ for 3 out of 5 areas in surgery – safe, caring, and well-led.

“We see the report as a chance to improve further, and we will work with other providers to improve our termination of pregnancy pathway.”

Steve Melton, chief executive of CircleHealth, said: “We use the same management method in all our hospitals. We’re hugely proud of the team in Nottingham.

“We felt the CQC judged us on solid outcomes and proper clinical guidance. Circle does some things differently to NHS hospitals, but in this inspection it felt like they were looking at that with an open mind. We commend the CQC East Midlands team for their approach.”

Earlier this year Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust, which was operated by Circle at the time, was rated as ‘inadequate’ by the CQC, although this was later revised to ‘requires improvement’. Circle made clear at the time that they disagreed with the CQC’s inspection judgments.

11.53am Here’s an interesting fact about Ben Gummer:

11.44am Jeremy Hunt has issued a statement having re-taken the reigns at the DH yesterday. Here’s what he had to say:

“I am humbled to be re-appointed health secretary, not least because of the enormous responsibility for hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses and other NHS staff who are working incredibly hard right now and under enormous pressure. To them I want to say a heartfelt thank you for all their efforts, with a simple message: like you I want the NHS to be the safest, most caring and highest quality healthcare system in the world. After Mid Staffs we have started a journey to get there - but if we are honest there is still further to go. My biggest priority now is to transform care outside hospitals - just as we have dramatically improved the quality of care inside hospitals in the last few years. All of us want every single older and vulnerable person to be treated with the highest standards of care - so we need a step change in services offered through GP surgeries, community care and social care. That is my mission, and I know it is the mission of the whole NHS too. I look forward to working with our brilliant frontline professionals to truly make our NHS the safest and most caring healthcare system in the world.”

10.42am The Independent reports on the sharp rise in strokes among working age people.

The Stroke Association has found that 6,221 men aged 40-54 in England were admitted to hospitals after a stroke last year, a nearly 50 per cent increase in 15 years.

Hospital admissions increased by a third (reaching 4,604 cases in 2014) among women.

The Stoke Association’s director of research and information Dale Webb said: “Half of all strokes could be avoided if high blood pressure was controlled.

“There are about five different lifestyle factors associated with high blood pressure: high levels of salt in the diet, being overweight, binge drinking, smoking and inactivity.

“We think those are the most likely reasons for the increases we have seen.”

10.27am Here’s that ministerial line up on the DH website:

10.20am The Daily Telegraph (newspaper only) reports that thousands of children are being admitted to hospital via accident and emergency departments because it is too difficult to see a GP, new research suggests.

Researchers from Imperial College London studied trends in unplanned hospital admissions from 2000 to 2012.

They found that when a new contract was introduced for GPs in 2004, which allowed doctors to stop providing evening and weekend care, there was a steep rise in the number of children with chronic conditions who ended up in hospital.

However GPs criticised the conclusions of the study. Maureen Baker, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “This research is largely based on ungrounded assumptions. There is no evidence of a causal link between out of hours GP access and either increased emergency attendances or short stay admissions for children.”

10.09am A quick glance on the Department of Health’s website reveals that Alastair Burt and Ben Gummer have beed added to the list of ministers, but there’s no sign of Dan Poulter.

10.00am In case you missed it yesterday, Alistair Burt was named as the new minister of state at the Department of Health, the post held before the general election by Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb.

Mr Burt was a junior minister at the foreign and commonwealth office from 2010-13, but since then he has not been in government. He was a minister for several years during the 1990s at the Department of Social Security.

9.49am Here’s HSJ’s Dave West on Ben Gummer:

9.45am Good morning and welcome to HSJ Live. The prime minister is finishing off his government reshuffle this morning. We’ve just had the news that Ben Gummer, the Conservative MP for Ipswich, has been appointed parliamentary under secretary of state. More news soon.