An acute trust that saw its adult dermatology service severely reduced earlier this year fears its children’s dermatology service is also under threat, plus breaking news and comment
5.00pm Today’s HSJ Executive Summary, rounding up today’s most important stories, has been published.
You can also sign up up to recieve the free Executive Summary email alert.
Acute provider Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust and Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust, which delivers mental health and community services, are looking to prepare the region to implement the new models of care laid out in the NHS Five Year Forward View, HSJ has been told.
1.28pm A major emergency hospital with 24 hour access to consultants will be developed at either the Royal Bournemouth Hospital or Poole Hospital, under proposals to improve services in Dorset.
Under plans by Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group one of the hospitals will continue to provide a 24 hour accident and emergency department, while the other will be developed into a major emergency centre with 24 hour access to consultants.
12.02pm Under pressure from within the government, ministers will be tempted by superficially attractive and politically expedient options to balance the books, but this route almost always ends in disaster, writes Incisive Health founding partner Bill Morgan in a comment piece for HSJ.
11.20am EXCLUSIVE: An acute trust that saw its adult dermatology service severely reduced earlier this year fears its children’s dermatology service is also under threat.
The concerns come as HSJ learns that dermatology consultants at the trust and a manager at private provider Circle, which took on part of the specialist service, have described the commissioners’ decision to split adult and children’s services as “flawed”.
10.55am The Guardian’s leader today quotes an HSJ comment piece by Crispin Dowler, about “major financial holes… opening up all over the acute sector”.
Commenting on David Cameron’s speech on seven day services yesterday, the paper asks: “How, in this context, as the resources going to be found to put 24/7 care in place?”
The leader claims that the Andrew Lansley reforms could have made this even more difficult.
“The confused and overlapping patchwork of autonomos NHS structures that Mr Lansley left behind could easily render Mr Cameron’s hopes of seven-day care a daydream.”
You can read Crispin’s piece here.
10.33am Bolton Foundation Trust has asked the Royal College of Surgeons to review its services after reporting seven ‘never events’ in just over a year.
Details of five incidents that occured during 2014-15 have been listed in the trust’s board papers for last month.
10.05am Investigations by HSJ have identified several cases that raise questions about the current system for securing patient consent for treatment.
We have also heard concerns about the current consent process from clinical negligence lawyers.
Today HSJ revealed that the Care Quality Commission and NHS England have together raised concern about whether the current system for securing patient consent for treatment is open to abuse, amid allegations some doctors have retrospectively altered consent forms.
9.54am The Care Quality Commission and NHS England have raised concerns that the current system for securing patient consent for treatment is open to abuse. It comes amid allegations that some doctors have retrospectively altered consent forms, HSJ can reveal.
In a letter seen by HSJ, the two bodies wrote to General Medical Council chief executive Niall Dickson to warn that patients were not always being given copies of their completed consent forms.
The concern is that this leaves scope for rogue clinicians to amend forms after the treatment to hide mistakes or procedures undertaken without informed consent.
9.40am Yesterday saw David Cameron make the first major speech of his new term, in which he set out his vision for a “seven day NHS”. The PM also reiterated his promise of “at least” an extra £8bn a year by 2020 for the NHS, and more investment and training for GPs.
Nice for the health service to feature so prominently. But nurses and doctors wondering what “seven day” working will mean for their contracts might think otherwise.
And the Tory honeymoon doesn’t appear to have swayed health service leaders away from their insistence on addressing the wider funding question, either.
Chief executive of NHS England Simon Stevens was speaking alongside Mr Cameron, and was careful to highlight that the year by year phasing of the £8bn was important, as was the ability to deliver sometimes controversial public health measures, as was a Scrooge-sounding “careful and disciplined phasing” of promised service improvements including… seven day services.
Elsewhere 50 NHS leaders signed a letter coordinated by the NHS Confederation to ask Mr Cameron for “extra investment this year and across the new parliament”, and for political support for service change.
No comments yet