Remarkable pictures from the Wellcome Image Awards 2014, which showcases the advances made in health imaging
5.18pm Ben Clover’s story on the leaked emails between Sir Peter Dixon and Sir Mike Richards has attracted a lot of impassioned reader comment. You can see what people have been saying here.
4.09pm An HSJ exclusive: NHS England policy director Bill McCarthy is to leave to become deputy vice chancellor of Bradford University.
An internal note said he would also pursue research interests in health policy.
Incoming NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said in the note that there would be “a few incremental changes to our national directorates to further support strong commissioning”.
4.03pm HSJ’s workforce reporter Shaun Lintern has received confirmation from the Department of Health that the NHS pay review body will publish its recommendations on NHS pay tomorrow. The government will release its official response at the same time.
As we reported earlier today on HSJ Live (see below), a Whitehall source has claimed the body will recommend a one per cent pay rise. The source claims this will not be accepted by the government.
3.53pm Following the open letter to NHS England from mental health charities which HSJ reported on earlier today, the Independent Mental Health Services Alliance has issued a statement in support of the charities calls. Here’s what the IMHSA said:
“NHS England must act now. In order to realise parity of esteem they should agree to reimburse all mental health providers who will have to absorb 20% greater efficiency savings than hospitals and take account of local circumstances. This will enable providers to investment in the system and will ultimately benefit patients.
“IMHSA fully recognises the significant pressures on the NHS and remains committed to working in partnership with the health and social care sector sothat everyone with a mental health needs is afforded safe, effective support at good value. But it is only when the system realises the stated governmentpolicy of parity of esteem that the historic disinvestment in mental health services can be rebalanced.”
3.24pm A trust with one of the largest predicted year end deficits in the country has revised it down by £11m, to £39m.
Barts Health Trust in London was predicting a £50m year-end deficit in December, but one of its March board papers states this has been “reassessed”.
Colm Donaghey will join the mental health trust on 1 July. He will take over from Lisa Rodrigues, who last year announced her plan to retire in summer 2014. She has been chief executive at Sussex Partnership and its predecessor organisations for the last 13 years.
3.15pm The number of under-18s admitted to adult mental health wards or treated on them is rising, figures show.
Despite government pledges that the practice would be stamped out by 2010, more children spent time on adult wards in the first eight months of 2013-14 than the whole of the previous year.
2.18pm Concluding today’s papers, the Daily Mail reports that the NHS is investigating claims that GPs are billing care homes for visits that should be free.
While nursing homes pay fees to cover “enhanced” services, there are concerns some family doctors are charging for basic NHS care.
Norman Lamb has asked the chief inspectors of general practice and adult social care at the Care Quality Commission to investigate how widespread the practice is.
2.06pm The winners of the Wellcome Image Awards 2014 have been revealed.
The awards are intended to champion cutting edge techniques in scientific imaging, and include a photograph of a deer tick embedded in human skin and an MRI of a human brain nerve fibres.
You can see the spectacular pictures here.
2.02pm In the Hospital Transformation channel, Jennifer Trueland explores whether older people need an emergency pathway of their own.
1.57pm The Labour MP Heidi Alexander asked a question about the NHS pay freeze at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
Ms Alexander asked Nick Clegg (standing in for David Cameron) if he could confirm that the independent review body had recommended a rise and asked whether the Government would accept it. Mr Clegg said an announcement was due on the matter soon.
Paul Waugh of PoliticsHome reports: “A senior Whitehall source is now claiming that the announcement will be made tomorrow (and had been held back from today and a PMQs PR disaster).”
The source claims the NHS pay review body has proposed a 1% rise but the Department of Health has vetoed it.
1.46pm An exclusive from HSJ’s Shaun Lintern: NHS England will pay the salary of its departing human resources director for up to two years after she leaves the organisation.
National director for human resources and organisational development Jo-Anne Wass is being seconded to Leeds University, where she will work as an organisational development consultant. However, she does not plan to return to her NHS England role.
1.39pm Monitor and NHS England are considering setting acute providers different efficiency targets based on their varying potential to achieve savings, the organisations have announced.
HSJ understands variable efficiency targets could be used to alleviate financial pressure on some trusts, which are currently struggling to deliver the required 4 per cent annual savings.
1.14pm Clinical commissioning group representatives have condemned a direction from NHS England saying they must contribute £250m to a national fund for “legacy debts” of primary care trusts.
NHS Clinical Commissioners, which represents CCGs, has written to NHS England objecting to a plan to set up a compulsory risk pool to pay for historic claims for continuing healthcare funding.
Last month NHS England wrote to CCGs instructing them to set aside a total of £250m in 2014-15 to contribute to the fund, which it will hold, in the form of a 0.39 per cent claim on each CCG’s allocation.
12.35pm The Times also reports on the development on an improved test to predict how long women with breast cancer could live and which treatments might work for them.
12.33pm More fromThe Times, paying people as little as £3 is likelier to make them quit smoking or exercise more, researchers from Newcastle University claim.
12.25pm The Times reports on CQC whistleblower Amanda Pollard saying she was “vilified, bullied, ridiculed, lied about and ostracised” after she told a public inquiry that inspectors were incapable of spotting a potential repeat of the Mid Staffordshire scandal.
HSJ last week reported that Ms Pollard has brought a claim of constructive dismissal against her former employer, claiming she was forced out of her job at the after she raised concerns.
Her claim is being heard at an employment tribunal this week.
10.55am The Guardian reports (paper only) that women who are married or live with a partner are less likely to die of heart disease than those who live alone, according to a study by academics at Oxford University.
Researches have established for some time that being in a long-term relationship is good for men’s health and The Million Women Study aimed to see if the same was for women.
The researchers looked at a database of 1.3m middle-aged women. They found that three in every 100 married women with coronary heart disease died compared with four in every 100 of those who lived alone.
10.54am MPs defused a Care Bill rebellion in the Commons last night by announcing concessions that make it less likely that a successful hospital will be affected by a decision to close a failing one nearby, The Guardian reports.
Only six conservatives and one Liberal Democrat MP voted against the government over clause 119.
However, a number of coalition MPs voiced concern at the power it contains to allow trust special administrators to force through changes at another local hospital if deemed necessary.
10.48am The Guardian reports that patient charities are warning that people with mental health problems could die because of NHS funding changes which breach ministerial pledges to treat patients with psychological and physical conditions equally.
HSJ has been reporting extensively over the past few weeks on the mental health tariff deflator that health bosses have said is discriminatory.
10.40am Also in The Telegraph (newspaper only), the parents of a two year old-boy have complained to a hospital after their son was made to sleep on plastic chairs because there were no hospital beds free.
Callum Giles, who had been taken to Southampton General Hospital in an ambulance because of a soaring temperature, spent six hours sleeping on two chairs at the hospital.
10.33am Leafing through this morning’s papers, The Daily Telegraph reports that a Conservative government aide has said GPs should help elderly couples to stay together to reduce pressure on the care system.
Rising numbers heading to the divorce courts as they approach retirement, are leading to “escalating costs” for the social care system as more people live alone, Andrew Selous said. The MP is the parliamentay private secretary to Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary.
10.14am A “lost generation” of young people could occur if key mental health services are not protected from funding cuts, charities have warned.
Research by Rethink Mental Illness found that 50 per cent of early intervention in psychosis (EIP) services - which help people recover from psychosis - have faced cuts in the past year, some by as much as 20 per cent.
The charity also warned about the impact of NHS England and Monitor setting a higher efficiency requirement for mental health services in 2014-15, meaning mental health trusts stand to lose a greater share of their income than acute hospitals. The issue has been highlighted by HSJ in recent months, including criticism from health minister Norman Lamb.
10.05am One in ten adolescents in Northern Ireland self-harm, new research has found.
The study by the University of Glasgow involved the surveying of 3,596 school pupils. It found that past exposure to the Northern Ireland conflict and social media are risk factors associated with self-harm.
The figure of one in ten young people reporting they had self-harmed at some stage in their lives is lower than elsewhere in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
9.50am The Health and Social Care Information Centre has appointed Martin Severs as its Caldicott guardian and lead clinician, the organisation has announced.
Professor Severs is a practicing consultant geriatrician and was clinical lead within the recent independent Information Governance Review led by Dame Caldicott. He also chaired the Information Standards Board for Health and Care in England from 1999 until 2014.
In a statement the HSCIC said: “As Caldicott guardian, Professor Severs will be central to ensuring the HSCIC’s information governance structures and processes are of best practice and transparent, helping to build public confidence in the organisation’s activities and actions.”
6.00am With obesity and diabetes rates soaring the world is faced with a problem exacerbated by the normalising of junk food, Aseem Malhotra tells Shreshtha Trivedi.
No comments yet