6pm: The DH has published regulations under the Health Act covering procurement, patient choice and competition.
5.46pm: Two reports published today by the National Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Transplant Alliance show an increase in the number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (BAME) patients awaiting an organ. Around 25% of those on the transplant waiting list are from BAME background.
“We need urgent action to address the fact that 90% of white Caucasian patients in need of a bone marrow transplant may find a match, while for BAME individuals the matching rate can be as low as 30%-40%,” says Orin Lewis OBE, joint-chair of the NBTA and chief executive of the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust.
5.13pm: Health minister Norman Lamb has launched the Accredited Voluntary Registers Scheme at an event in the House of Commons. Overseen by the Professional Standards Authority, the scheme paves the way for a official voluntary registration scheme for healthcare assistants. However, the first two registers to be accredited are the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the British Acupuncture Council.
4.48pm: Robert Royce, visiting fellow at the King’s Fund and a former hospital trust director, tweets in response to our story about a tightening up of scrutiny on commissioners. Dr Royce says: “Am sure that ‘scrutiny’ will be on increase but will any of it ensure a patient gets a bed pan or a drink when they need it?”
4.43pm: HSJ reporter Shaun Lintern has been named the Best New Business News Journalist of the Year at the PPA New Talent Awards. The award was announced at a ceremony last night. Shaun has reported on the failures at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust for several years, previously for West Midlands paper the Express and Star and now for HSJ and Nursing Times.
The judges said of his work: “Shaun’s style is engaging, exciting and fast-paced. The judges saw clear evidence of hard work, research, and diligence, together with proof of his great sense of what his readers need and want. Shaun already appears to have a fan base within his readership, and this will only grow from here.”
2.19pm: @profchrisham chief exec at King’s Fund tweets:
“Spent morning learning about how London hospital coping with ever increasing emergency pressures. Not convinced CCGs have answers”
2.10pm: More Francis news - the government risks making the same mistakes in setting up local Healthwatch that it made in setting up predecessor patient and public involvement organisations, the Francis report warns. Mr Francis highlighted the lack of a prescribed structure for setting up LINks as a major factor in the groups’ descent into “fractious disputes” over governance issues.
1.25pm: Scrutiny of clinical commissioning groups and support units is set to be tightened in response to the Francis report. The commissioning board is likely to identify the role of commissioning support units in strong quality oversight of contracts.
1.05pm: The Independent reports that a relative of a British patient who recently contracted a potentially fatal Sars-like virus has also become infected with the disease. Officials confirmed the relative, also British, is being treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham after becoming infected with a new type of coronavirus.
12.57pm: Croydon Guardian reports that Croydon University Hospital has been assured none of its patients have been served meals containing horse meat. Bosses at Croydon NHS Trust sought assurances that its beef products were not implicated in the contaminated meat scandal. Suppliers provided laboratory test results.
12.10pm: GPonline reports that a GP has become a YouTube hit with weekly health videos. Dr Ricky Gondhia, a salaried GP in Bexley, London, fronts the One Click Clinic, a series of YouTube videos on topics from breast cancer to alcohol. His most popular video on cold and flu so far has 12,114 hits since December.
12.01pm: @MBirty managing director of MHP Health Mandate tweets:
Why is the message from Francis confused? I think the Government’s response bears some responsibility http://bit.ly/14RSbxS
11.32am: @ShaunLintern tweets:
Peter Carter says RCN will support closures and reconfigurations if they’re based on back clinical plans that improve patient care. #nwf13
11.27am: The Guardian’s Datablog has compiled a smoking map of England. Based on data from the London Health Observatory, it shows how prevalence of smoking, the cost of smoking-related hospital admissions and the percentage of women smoking during pregnancy vary by area.
11.12am: @ShaunLintern tweets:
CNO @JaneMCummings supports the idea of evidence based staffing numbers but says its also culture and leadership as well. #nwf13
11.09am: Sally Gainsbury is looking at the future for Monitor by reading the runes in the regulator’s financial arrangements, following on from Robert Francis’ recommendation of absorbing Monitor into the Care Quality Commission, which she says “can hardly have come as a surprise”.
11.02am: Foreign patients who seek private treatment in the UK are a lucrative source of income for the NHS, new research has found. International patients can generate a third of the income trusts earn from private patients - despite the fact that most hospitals only treat a relatively small number.
10.50am: HSJ reporter Shaun Lintern is tweeting from an event where NHS Commissioning Board chief nurse Jane Cummings is speaking.
@ShaunLintern tweets:
“We should measure right things and measure them once. We need to evidence care that we give and be open transparent.”@JaneMCummings #nwf13
10.41am: Story from @sjcalkin - Monitor could regulate managers in response to Francis report. Robert Francis QC’s proposal to extend the scope of the “fit and proper person” test for directors of NHS providers could lead to Monitor regulating individual managers, the chief executive of the regulator has told HSJ.
10.17am: The Department of Health is circulating a reminder to all NHS commissioned care providers to check their supply chain for beef products containing horsemeat.
10.07am: The DH has also published the full text of the health secretary’s speech on regulation and bureaucracy from yesterday.
10.03am: The Guardian leads with Hunt’s announcement yesterday that NHS Confederation chief executive Mike Farrar will lead a review into bureaucracy in the NHS. Jeremy Hunt plans reforms to tackle NHS regulatory ‘madness’. Health secretary says he wants to avoid ‘elephant trap’ of more regulation in wake of Francis report on Stafford scandal is their headline. See HSJ’s coverage of it yesterday.
9.50am: Men miss more appointments than women, new Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) figures show. Hospitals in England recorded almost one in six appointments for men aged 20 to 29 as unattended in the 12 months to October 2012. One in 11 appointments were missed by women of the same age. The full report can be read on HSCIC’s website.
8.02am: Good morning, four London CCGs have collaborated to tackle complex health and social care issues in their area. Clinical commissioning groups, local authorities and community service providers in Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest are seeing real benefits to patients, by sharing data information between organisations. Local hospitals, GPs and social care organisations share informatics which is then analysed to produce population health profiles.
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