All Legal articles – Page 133
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News
Legal briefing: organising key commissioning relationships
Commissioning has been part and parcel of the NHS for a number of years. What has changed recently is the view that a reinvigorated and more sophisticated commissioning process, with the implementation of practice-based commissioning, will improve services and ensure value for money.
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HSJ Knowledge
Tackling nuisance behaviour on NHS premises
Disturbances in hospitals are sadly an all too common part of life in the NHS. Over 60,000 assaults against staff were reported to the NHS Security Management Service during 2004 and 2005, and the Healthcare Commission estimates that only around two-thirds of assaults are actually reported - the true number ...
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News
Law on small claims goes ahead
A fast-track, low-cost scheme to resolve clinical negligence claims up to £20,000 without litigation has received royal assent.The NHS Redress Act will see the NHS Litigation Authority run a scheme to determine fault and decide after a trust has carried out a fact-finding exercise into an untoward incident. Patients accepting ...
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News
Queen's Speech reignites row over mental health legislation
The government used yesterday's Queen's Speech to confirm that it will introduce a bill to reform mental health legislation, following its decision to abandon plans for a new mental health act in March.The bill will introduce a new definition of 'mental disorder', a new 'appropriate treatment test' and supervised community ...
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HSJ Knowledge
David Lock on pressure to prescribe
'There are two potentially conflicting legal duties here - the duty to prescribe the drug and the legal requirement to break even'
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News
Data fears don't stop survey
The Department of Health is pushing ahead with a massive GP patient experience survey despite fears over data protection issues and dissent from the British Medical Association.
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HSJ Knowledge
When 3x9=24 and fewer tired doctors
A fresh approach to rota design in the wake of the European working-time directive could help ensure that doctors and patients are better looked after. Professor Roy Pounder explains
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News
LINks to get scrutiny role
Local Involvement Networks will be given a legal right to inspect NHS, social care, voluntary and independent sector organisations, health minister Rosie Winterton said this week.
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Comment
Service redesign consultations
I worry we have lost the plot. In the last two weeks I have received four different letters from solicitors offering me advice on consultation. Post Derbyshire some colleagues have become obsessed with what we need to satisfy our legal friends. How grim. Have we really got to the point ...
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News
Chief medical officer proposes overhaul of expert witness programme
Chief medical officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson has proposed a radical overhaul of the system for providing medical expert witnesses for family courts.Sir Liam has proposed that teams of specialist doctors and other professionals in NHS organisations will improve quality through mentoring, supervision and peer review. A National Knowledge Service ...
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HSJ Knowledge
Legal briefing: commissioning change after North Eastern Derbyshire PCT
PCTs need to be aware that commissioning of health services has to meet basic standards of transparency and fairness under European Union law
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News
Lords consider Commons amendments to NHS Redress Bill
The bill to streamline the handling of NHS complaints has returned to the Lords, where peers have failed to reach agreement with MPs over its provisions.Peers yesterday voted by 149 to 133 to back an amendment to ensure that investigations were carried out by a body independent of that against ...
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HSJ Knowledge
Legal Briefing: resolving payment disputes between PCTs and foundation trusts
As the NHS becomes accustomed to the legally-binding contracts between primary care trusts and foundation trusts, the main pressure points are beginning to emerge.
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News
Winterton: BME service discrimination 'unethical and unlawful'
Black and minority ethnic mental health service users are being discriminated against in ways that are unethical and unlawful, a health minister has admitted.
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News
David Lock on an independent NHS
An independent NHS board would be good news for ministers - but what about managers, wonders David Lock
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News
New chief for scandal trust
A new chief executive has been parachuted into a trust at the centre of a waiting-list scandal.
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Comment
Comment: PCTs need certainty of consultations to innovate
'You cannot be certain of a consultation's outcome, however important to you, but that makes it all the more vital you are certain of the process.'
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News
Chief executive says decision on UnitedHealth contract is a lesson for all PCTs
The chief executive of the primary care trust which had its contract with UnitedHealth Europe quashed by the Court of Appeal has urged the rest of the NHS to learn from the case.
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News
Trusts risk tribunal payouts over rights of oldest workers
Trusts could face huge compensation bills handed out by employment tribunals if they do not get to grips with the new age discrimination legislation that comes into force in October, NHS Employers has warned.
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News
CRE warning over NHS failure on race information
Trusts could face action from the Commission for Racial Equality after just 1 per cent were found to have complied with race equality legislation.