4.25pm: Drugs made for leading firms including Superdrug are being recalled after inspectors found problems with manufacturing at an Indian plant. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency stressed there was no risk to patients as it issued an alert over five of the drugs.
4.21pm: The Commons health committee will take evidence from Monitor on 26 November. The committee invites written submissions on the work of Monitor in advance of the hearing. Written evidence must be submitted via the web portal and the deadline for this is noon on 14 November.
The committee also invites evidence on Public Health England. The deadline is 7 November and the hearing will be on 19 November. Click here for details.
4.13pm: The Alzheimer’s Society has reacted to health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s speech in which he focused on the “forgotten million” older people isolated at home or in care. Director of external affairs Dr Alison Cook said: “The CQC certainly has a role to play in inspecting for high-quality care. Care homes too must train staff so that people with dementia stay active and engaged. More widely, we need a shift in society’s attitude towards those with dementia so that they can stay active in their community.”
4pm: This week’s issue of HSJ magazine is now available to read on our tablet app. Find out how to get it here.
2.31pm: Many thanks to everyone contributing to #hsjchat - please continue to use the hashtag if you want to keep the discussion going.
2.22pm: Selection of tweets from our live chat on CCGs, which has just finished.
Ben Pathe @BenP1972
#hsjchat biggest thing we @patientopinion have noticed is CCGs developing at different speeds. Makes wider pan region initiatives difficult.
Felix Greaves @felixgreaves Transparent blogs all well and good, but I want transparency on costs and outcomes. Worse in new system. #hsjchat
Leigh Griffin @LGriffin_GMCSU
#HSJchat Level of expectations re CSUs a stepchange from PCTs. We know we are not yet delighting in some areas but are steadily improving.
Gareth Harry @GarethHarry
#HSJchat CCGs facing a massive challenge on strategic planning over the next nine months. Will need support to deliver local agreements.
2.18pm: HSJ’s Live Twitter chat on the first six months of CCGs is over - mine a deep seam of knowledge and opinion here.
2.12pm: “Dive! Dive! Dive!” This year’s Foundation Trust Network was a feast of baffling metaphors. Explanation.
2pm: The deputy chief executive of Medway Foundation Trust - one of the ‘Keogh 11’ investigated for high death rates - has left his role there. Patrick Johnson, who was also director of operations, left the trust at the end of September, it emerged last week.
1.40pm: Healthcare privatisation is rapidly increasing, and so is the number of patients left suffering the results of botched operations, says the Mirror. Operations bungled by private firms working for the NHS have doubled since 2009, with more than 100 patients experiencing unnecessary pain in the past year. Many were left with broken bones, injured joints or damaged nerves, while some even needed further operations to patch up the mistakes.
12.00pm: Whistleblowers will be actively sought out by Care Quality Commission inspection teams to help them form regulatory judgements about healthcare providers, HSJ has discovered. This latest move is part of the CQC’s continuing drive to give complainants and whistleblowers a greater role in its new regime, writes Shaun Lintern.
11.50am: Kaye Wiggins writes that it’s been revealed the amount of progress clinical commissioning groups and councils make in working together next year will help determine their area’s share of the £3.8bn fund for health and care integration from 2015. Read her story here.
11.25am: HSJ writer Sarah Calkin tweets: “Do amendments to failure regime remove two of Lansley’s 4 tests? @TheKingsFund’s Candace Imison thinks so.” Read the story here.
11.20am: Regulation of the NHS by the CQC is changing. New chief inspectors, a new inspection regime, new metrics… But what does it all mean? And how does all this line up with the increasingly trenchant political statements about holding managers to account?
Join this free HSJ webinar to explore what CQC regulation means - and what you can do now to ensure your organisation is prepared.
Go to www.hsj.co.uk/hsj-tv on 31 October, between 12.30pm-1.30pm.
11.14am: Also on hsj.co.uk today, Dean Royles explains how NHS Employers has been working with Health Education England and employers to try to put the common culture of putting the patient first - talked about by the Francis report - into practice. Read the chief executive at NHS Employers and interim chief executive at the NHS Confederation’s Opinion column here.
11.08am: Our Waiting Time Guru Rob Findlay’s blog says that the English waiting list grew sharply in August; the biggest (and only significant) August increase since 2008. “Not only is the waiting list now bigger than at any time since April 2008, but the gap has widened again compared with recent years and the pressure is on to sustain the 18 week targets over the coming winter.” Read his analysis here.
10.55am: The Guardian reports that Jeremy Hunt will today tell British families they should follow the example of people in Asia, by taking in elderly relatives once they can no longer live alone. The health secretary, whose wife is Chinese, is due to say in a speech that he is struck by the “reverence and respect” for older people in Asian cultures, where it is expected that older grandparents will go to live with their children and grandchildren rather than enter a care home.
Also on the site, minister for care and support Normal Lamb says councils must use care resources more intelligently. In his article in Guardian Professional he says that to make ends meet and drive up quality we need to do more than the bare minimum. Read it here.
9.12am: In recent months, have seen the validity of psychiatry has flared up once again, and this time some leading lights within the profession are arguing that there is an urgent need for it to reposition itself. But if there’s a crisis, it’s a strange one, argues Dr Ken McLaughlin, who is a speaker at the Battle of Ideas festival at London’s Barbican on 19-20 October, of which HSJ is a media partner. Read Dr McLaughlin’s opinion piece here. More details on the festival here.
Also speaking at the festival is Dr Martyn Thomas, who today on hsj.co.uk says there is no question that big data and data analysis can be of great benefit to society, for example in medical research, social policy and the investigation of crime. But the assertion that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear is unthinking, ignorant and callous, he argues. Dr Thomas will be speaking at the session “Number crunching and ethics in the era of Big Data”.
7.40am: The pressure on the new commissioning system has featured heavily in the news in recent weeks, with support services in particular in the spotlight. Last week HSJ looked at where CSUs would need to improve to guarantee their survival. To mark the six-month anniversary of the new system, HSJ will be hosting a Twitter chat to discuss where it is and isn’t working. To take part, simply join in on Twitter from 1pm today, using the hashtag #HSJChat. More information here.
Already live on the site is a new piece by Helen Simpson and Andrew Rankin. In July, NHS England published its vision of access to digital data across care settings, so they ask what the contracting and procurement experiences are of trusts that have already started their own procurement journey? And how can mistakes of the past be avoided?
Commissioners are increasingly choosing outcome-based approaches and the key to their success will be investing time in planning and preparation, says Adrian Woolmore. In our Resource Centre today he explains how to get things right from the start.
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