1.30pm The Office of Fair Trading has concluded that it has jurisdiction over proposed mergers between foundation trusts and NHS trusts, in a move that could have big implications for the “FT pipeline”. Attached to HSJ’s exclusive story is a detailed statement from the competition watchdog explaining its assessment of the legal position.
10.30am Reaction has continued to pour in following the special administrator Matthew Kershaw’s final report recommending that South London Healthcare Trust is broken up.
We have one report on the controversy among doctors at Lewisham Healthcare Trust, where the accident and emergency department was recommended to be closed.
The same element of the plan was also unpopular with Lewisham Deptford MP Joan Ruddock in the Commons.
10.10am The number of patients waiting more than six weeks for one of 15 key diagnostic tests increased slightly in November but is down year on year, data from the Department of Health shows.
There were 654,000 patients still waiting at the end of November, equivalent to 0.7 per cent of the waiting list. This compares to 0.6 per cent at the end of October 2012 and 1.1 per cent at the end of November 2011.
Nationally, patients are waiting longest for urodynamics and sleep studies tests with 4.1 per cent and 3.7 per cent of the waiting list waiting longer than six weeks respectively. University Hospitals Bristol Foundation Trust was the worst performing NHS organisation with 14.8 per cent of patients waiting more than six weeks.
7.41am: Rob Beardall writes on the six building blocks to integrated care particularly for patients with long-term conditions. “Organisations do not need an expensive consulting diagnostic to define their state. One health economy is not that different from most others” he says.
7.35am: NHS pension reform is about more than contributions and benefits says Noel Plumridge. “A government can trim its pension exposure once and for all by trimming the workforce. The Health and Social Care Act is as much about privatising NHS provision as restructuring commissioning.”
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