5.15pm: Employers have asked the Review Body for Doctors’ and Dentist’s Remuneration not to increase pay next year. The NHS Employers organisation has also asked the body to encourage doctors to make progress towards seven-day care.

The comments came during an oral hearing between the Review Body and employers. Gill Bellord, director of employment relations and reward for NHS Employers told the DDRB: “Patients must be at the centre of everything the NHS does, including pay reviews. We are again urging the DDRB to not recommend any pay rise for hospital doctors and instead support changes to contracts to achieve better seven-day care.

“Our contract negotiations with the BMA are happening right now and this is the opportunity for consultants to start agreeing greater presence during evenings and weekends. We hope the DDRB will tell doctors that change needs to be embraced in negotiations, especially removing contractual obstacles to improving care.”

4.45pm: HSJ has launched a new microsite and weekly email newsletter focusing on hospital transformation.

The new service, which can be found at www.hsj.co.uk/hospitaltransformation, is designed to meet the needs of clinical leaders, chief operating officers, medical directors, nursing directors, and senior transformation managers. It will be a hub for articles about the improvement journey of English hospitals, including analysis, trends, best practice, and interviews.

4.35pm: Paul Jenkins, chief executive of Rethink, will be chairing a free HSJ webinar tomorrow exploring how to make parity of esteem for mental and physical healthcare a reality. Click here to find out more.

4.30pm: The Department of Health has said that the government agrees with calls for transparency in clinical trial data. Its statement comes partly in response to work by groups such as the AllTrials Campaign, which calls for all past and present clinical trials to be registered and results published. Read the government’s full statement here.

3.50pm: The Observer has suggested that a government drive to introduce more competition into the NHS is holding up the creation of new “world-class” cancer treatment centres. The paper’s investigations show that hospitals whose roles would be downgraded under reorganisations are now blocking moves to concentrate cancer services into fewer top-performing specialist centres, by claiming such mergers would be anti-competitive and would reduce patient choice.

3.15pm: MPs from all parties have been urged to adopt a children’s palliative care blueprint for the next parliament. Together for Short Lives, a charity that campaigns on the issue of palliative care for children has asked politicians to adopt eight priorities that it says could transform care in this area.

Barbara Gelb, Chief Executive of Together for Short Lives, said: “today marks a unique opportunity for politicians of all persuasions to understand how policy needs to change in order to improve the lives of children who have life-limiting conditions and their families.  Well commissioned and co-ordinated palliative care helps families make the most of their time together, enables services to develop to meet their needs and reduces emergency admissions and stays in hospital. We must seize this opportunity so that children and families can live better lives and the services that care for them face a more sustainable future.”

3.05pm: Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust have recruited a group of 22 nurses from Spain. They are set to start working in permanent positions at Grimsby’s Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital at the end of November. An increasing number of trusts are said to be looking abroad for staff due to a national and local shortage of nurses in the UK.

2.45pm: The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals (AHCP) have highlighted the importance of the relationship between cleaning and nursing professionals in a report released today. Creating a Safe Environment for Care has been published to provide guidance on how best the two professions can work together to ensure hygienic care settings.

2.30pm: Recommended reading ahead of the coalition’s response to Francis tomorrow.

2.15pm: The NHS Confederation has created a briefing document, summarising the events around the Francis report and a guide to the government’s actions so far. Read it here.

1.50pm: The Daily Telegraph reports that the royal colleges have recommended hospital patients be able to access consultants every day of the week. The proposals from 20 organisations representing senior doctors have been made amid concern about increased death risks on weekends.

1.24pm: A Scottish health board is facing legal action after asbestos was found at a hospital. The Health and Safety Executive has submitted a report to the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service relating to asbestos in the plant room of the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. Full story here.

12.40pm: The issue of hospital staffing levels is set to stay in the news following the coalition’s official response to the Francis report, which is due to be announced tomorrow. As the final details are checked, HSJ reports that three of the NHS’s most senior nurses have spoken out against the introduction of minimum staffing levels as the profession becomes increasingly divided over the issue ahead of tomorrow’s anouncement. Read more here.

12.00pm: A foundation trust has suspended the last executive director remaining in post from the tenure of its previous chief executive,HSJ has discovered. Mystery surrounds the suspension at the trust, which Monitor found in 2012 to be in significant breach of its licence after failures surrounding the 18 week waiting time target. Read about it here.

11.40am: NHS England is to move its London office into a building with the Department of Health, in an effort to save £1 million. Full story here.

11.26am: Ahead of the government’s official response into the Francis report on care failings at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham took to the BBC’s Sunday Politics over the weekend to attack the government’s move to close a number of walk-in centres. Watch his interview here.

Mr Burnham also criticised the 111 phone service’s perceived lack of preparedness ahead of the winter period in A&E departments.

10.50am: The practice of forcing hospital patients into other wards because of overcrowding should be eliminated within the NHS to improve standards of care, a group of senior medical professionals have said.

The recommendation to ban so-called “boarding” in hospitals is among the findings of a meeting of more than 160 doctors, nurses and another health staff from across the UK, convened by the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (RCPE) and the Scottish government. Full story here.

10.15am: The Prime minister’s nursing advisory group has recommended the introduction of minimum staffing levels, placing it in direct opposition to government policy.

The Prime Minister’s Nursing and Care Quality Forum has released a statement to HSJ sister title Nursing Times ahead of the government’s full response to the Francis report on care failings at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust. Read about that here.

7.30am: Good morning and welcome to a new week of HSJ Live. New on the site, Glenn Warren says that Macmillan believes a fundamental shift is now required away from the current focus on interventions and provider based commissioning, to one that builds services around the patient and their carers. Read that here.

And Neil Margerison writes that more than central support for whistleblowers, understanding what makes a ‘good employer’ and a ‘good employee’ could help bring about a change in NHS culture.