Live coverage of NHS England’s annual general meeting, Simon Stevens warning over the phasing of NHS funding growth, and the first appearance in post of the new chief executive of NHS Improvement.

  • Simon Stevens indicates the government’s priorities for the NHS for coming years will have to be delayed if its promised £8bn real terms funding growth is not front loaded in the Parliament, as the NHS requires. This would mean slower delivery of things like seven day services if increases are delayed. NHS England is pressing for front-loading of the £8bn - and for an additional “transformation fund” - but it may be difficult for the Treasury to meet this.
  • The NHS England chief executive said his organisation wanted to allocating local funding for coming years on a “place based” basis - indicating it would consider primary and specialised care alongside general services; and potentially social care and public health.
  • Jim Mackey, the new chief executive of NHS Improvement, said the “principles behind” the new emergency hospital he has opened at Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust could be “replicated”. It centralised acute care from three DGHs, separating emergency from elective work, and achieving better seven-day service coverage.
  • Mr Mackey says NHS Improvement “will help health systems work out where they want to be in future years”.
  • NHS England finance director Paul Baumann is concerned about finances, saying it is “just about possible to make [the] sums work in 2015-16” but that the position is looking “distinctly fragile”
  • In other news today: Government NHS efficiency adviser Lord Carter has told HSJ he is looking to establish “clearer guidance” on safe staffing levels as part of his work.

6.00pm The AGM has now finished. Look out for a story tomorrow that will cover all the updates that came out of the meeting.

4.40pm: The AGM has kicked off and Simon Stevens is speaking - follow Sophie Barnes’s updates below.

3.53pm HSJ correspondent Sophie Barnes has been tweeting updates from an event this afternoon on progress with London’s health strategy in the past year, with Mayor Boris Johnson, Lord Ara Darzi, and NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens. She will be tweeting live updates from the AGM from 4.30pm.

12.30pm: We’ve published further detail on Lord Carter’s announcements about addressing variation in clinical practice and costs.

 

Sophie's tweets