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Ministers urged to launch inquiry into inpatient mental health services after ‘systemic abuse’ allegations

Ministers have been urged to launch a public inquiry into the care of mental health patients after The Independent revealed allegations that patients had suffered “systemic abuse” in inpatient units.

A joint investigation with Sky News found that teenagers at facilities run by The Huntercombe Group had been left with post-traumatic stress disorder by their treatment despite hundreds of warnings to regulators and the NHS.

Now the government is facing calls to review all mental health care services over fears that these cases are “the tip of the iceberg”.

Labour’s shadow mental health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has called for a “rapid review” by the government into inpatient mental health services, while Deborah Coles, the chief executive of charity Inquest, has called on the new health secretary Steve Barclay to launch a statutory public inquiry.

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Source: The Independent, 28 October 2022

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Ministers trigger review of CQC inspection regime

The government is launching a review of the Care Quality Commission and has appointed a senior NHS figure to lead it, HSJ understands.

The Department of Health and Social Care has commissioned the work, along with other departments, and selected Penny Dash, current North West London Integrated Care Board chair and formerly a senior McKinsey & Company consultant, to lead it.

HSJ understands the review will examine how the CQC’s recently updated assessment framework is working, and how it links to NHS England’s national oversight framework.

It will also consider whether the CQC’s ratings were properly rewarding and incentivising the improvement of care, and how the regulator is taking into account service user and patient voices, sources told HSJ. 

One source involved said they hoped the work would also respond to providers’ complaints that CQC inspections are making it more difficult for them to redesign services, for example by enforcing minimum staffing requirements, and are skewing their priorities. 

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Source: HSJ, 8 May 2024

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Ministers told to set out plan for hiring mental health nurses in England

UK ministers must set out how to recruit and retain thousands more mental health nurses to plug the profession’s biggest staff shortage, healthcare leaders are warning.

Mental health nurses account for nearly a third of all nursing vacancies across England, resulting in overstretched services that are struggling to deliver timely care, according to research carried out by the NHS Confederation’s mental health network.

Sean Duggan, the network’s chief executive, said: “Mental health leaders and their teams are pulling out all the stops in what are very constrained circumstances, but they cannot be expected to solve this staffing crisis alone.

“The knock-on effect means that the mental health crisis the nation is facing will in turn become a crisis for the whole healthcare system and the country. This relentless pressure on mental health staff cannot be allowed to continue with the ultimate impact being on the patients who most need that care.”

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Source: The Guardian, 16 May 2023

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Ministers to set up ‘dedicated team’ to aid NHS recovery

The government said it will set up ‘dedicated team’ to look for innovative ways for the NHS to continue treating people for coronavirus, while also providing care for non-covid health issues.

In its pandemic recovery strategy published today, the government also said step-down and community care will be “bolstered” to support earlier discharge from acute hospitals.

The 60-page document contained little new information about plans for NHS services, but said: “The government will seek innovative operating models for the UK’s health and care settings, to strengthen them for the long term and make them safer for patients and staff in a world where COVID-19 continues to be a risk.

“For example, this might include using more telemedicine and remote monitoring to give patients hospital-level care from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Capacity in community care and step-down services will also be bolstered, to help ensure patients can be discharged from acute hospitals at the right time for them".

To this end, the government will establish a dedicated team to see how the NHS and health infrastructure can be supported for the COVID-19 recovery process and thereafter.

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Source: 12 May 2020

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Ministers to make it easier for foreign nurses and dentists to work in NHS

Ministers will introduce legislation as soon as parliament returns on Monday to tackle the NHS’s worsening staffing crisis by making it easier for overseas nurses and dentists to work in the UK.

The move is part of a drive by the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to increase overseas recruitment to help plug workforce gaps in health and social care.

Barclay believes thousands of extra health professionals will come as a result of new rules making it easier for medical regulators to register those who have qualified abroad. If the change proves successful it will help pave the way for more nurses and dentists coming to work in Britain from countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, the Philippines and Malaysia.

However, critics claim the policy is a stop-gap that is no substitute for ramping up the supply of homegrown staff and risks worsening the lack of health workers in other countries that are struggling with shortages of their own.

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Source: The Guardian, 5 September 2022

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Ministers to legislate for more power over patient data

Ministers are to legislate more powers over how data on patients is collected and are imposing a 'duty' on the NHS to share patient information when doing so would benefit the system. 

The Health and Social Care Act 2021 already allows for sharing of data on an individual basis but staff have reported finding it hard to share it when it comes to primary and secondary care and administrative purposes. 

The new draft strategy produced by NHSX, has suggested it may want to use cloud storage to create a set of “structured data records” with the idea that it would make it easier for patients to access their own data. 

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Source: HSJ, 22 June 2021

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Ministers seek volunteer social care army to speed up hospital discharges

Health ministers are to recruit a new volunteer army for social care to ferry medical equipment and drugs to people’s homes in a bid to free up congested hospital wards.

Under the plan, members of the public will be able to sign up on the GoodSam app for roles such as “check in and chat”, which involves support over the phone for people struggling with loneliness.

There will also be the chance to “pick up and deliver”, helping to transport medicines or small items of medical equipment to people’s homes from NHS sites so they can be discharged from hospital, and “community response” roles will involve collecting and delivering shopping and prescriptions.

The joint NHS and social care volunteers responders programme for England is being launched on Wednesday amid a social care staffing crisis with 165,000 vacancies and millions of hours of care needs not being met. At the end of April, 49,000 people every day had to stay in NHS hospitals in England despite no longer meeting the criteria to be there.

News of the planned announcement from the care minister, Helen Whately, has sparked concern among workers in the sector, who warned that volunteering could not solve the social care recruitment and retention crisis. Helen Wildbore, director of Care Rights UK, which represents relatives and residents, said it “feels like a desperate measure to try and save a system that is crumbling”.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 June 2023

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Ministers reject Hunt’s plans for general practice

The Government has rejected several policy proposals to promote “continuity of care” in general practice which were put forward by Jeremy Hunt. 

The now chancellor championed significant policy changes to strengthen the link between patients and an individual, named GP, when he was Commons health and social care committee chair.

However, the government’s response to the report rejects several of the key proposals.

The committee under Jeremy Hunt said “NHS England should champion the personal list model” – under which each patient is linked to a particular GP – “rather than dismiss it as unachievable”.

The Department of Health and Social Care response said: “The department does not accept this recommendation. We agree that continuity of care is important within general practice but do not agree that requiring a return to the personal list model is the correct approach.

Government also rejected recommendations from Mr Hunt’s committee to introduce a new national measure to track continuity of care by practice; and to fund primary care networks to appoint a GP “continuity lead” for a session a week.

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Source: HSJ, 24 July 2023

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Ministers reject calls for immediate compensation for infected blood victims

Calls for immediate compensation for thousands of victims contaminated by infected NHS blood have been rejected by ministers at a meeting with campaigners and survivors – but more health support may be made available.

Despite one person dying every four days on average from HIV, hepatitis C or other conditions, the government on Tuesday turned down a request for a national compensation scheme.

There are estimated to be between 5,000 and 7,000 victims still alive who acquired viral infections through transfusions from the health service. Many are haemophiliacs who need regular transfusions to help their blood clot.

Products supplied by the NHS in the 1970s and 1980s came from the US using blood obtained from prisoners and drug addicts who were paid for their donations. Imported products were inadequately screened.

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Source: The Guardian, 28 January 2020

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Ministers refuse to set target for ending maternal deaths disparity

The government has rejected calls to set a target and strategy to end ‘appalling’ disparities in maternal deaths.

In response to a Commons women and equalities committee report, published on Friday, ministers said a “concrete target does not necessarily focus resource and attention through the best mechanisms”.

The response added: “We do not believe a target and strategy is the best approach towards progress.”

The government said disparities will be monitored through local maternity and neonatal systems, which are partnerships comprising commissioners, providers and local authorities.

A recommendation to increase the annual budget for maternity services to up to £350m per year, backed by the now chancellor Jeremy Hunt, and maternity investigator Donna Ockenden, was also rejected.

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Source: HSJ, 3 July 2023

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Ministers pressed for promised ‘independent workforce plan’

Government must deliver on its manifesto commitment to “regular, independent workforce planning” for health and social care, royal colleges and others warned Wes Streeting today.

Some 74 health and care organisations today wrote to the health and social care secretary urging him to engage with them on his 10-year NHS workforce plan.

It is due to be published this year but government and NHS England are yet to begin detailed discussions with the sector. 

The government’s 10-Year Health Plan says there will be fewer staff than proposed in the 2023 long-term workforce plan. It says there will need to be more flexible working and changes to staff roles, to increase productivity – moves likely to be unpopular with some professionals.

The wide-ranging groups that have written the letter – which include most royal colleges – warned a “robust stakeholder engagement process” was crucial if the plan is to be “thorough [and] credible”, and to get support from the sector. There should be an accompanying implementation plan, they say.

“We remain supportive of a regularly refreshed, credible national workforce plan for the NHS with independently verified modelling,” the letter adds. “We are clear that funding will need to be attached to any priorities that the plan sets.”

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HSJ, 3 September 2025

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Ministers pledge to ‘reset the dial’ on women’s health in England

Ministers have pledged to “reset the dial” on women’s health to tackle decades of gender inequality in England, with plans to appoint a women’s health tsar, eradicate medical taboos, boost menopause support and ban harmful “virginity repair” operations.

The Department of Health and Social Care has published its Vision for Women’s Health strategy after 100,000 women came forward to share their healthcare concerns. Maria Caulfield, the minister for women’s health, described some of their experiences as “shocking”.

The vision document sets out initial government commitments on women’s health, recognising that “systemwide changes” are needed to tackle “decades of gender health inequality”. The final plan – the Women’s Health Strategy – will be published in spring 2022.

On Wednesday night, ministers pledged to introduce legislation criminalising hymenoplasty or any procedure to rebuild or repair the hymen. Such surgery creates scar tissue so that a woman will bleed the next time she has intercourse, making it appear she has never had sex. Young women can be forced to prove they are “pure” on their wedding night. Doctors have called for a ban on the surgery for years, saying it can never be justified on health grounds and is harmful.

Separately, the government will appoint a women’s health ambassador to raise the profile of key issues and boost awareness of taboo topics. Ministers will also establish a UK-wide menopause taskforce to investigate how women going through the menopause can be better supported. The cost of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescriptions will also be cut by implementing longer prescribing cycles so women will need fewer prescriptions and therefore pay less.

The consultation provided “stark and sobering insights” into women’s experiences of health and care and highlighted entrenched problems within the NHS, officials said.

Ministers are also considering compulsory training for GPs on women’s health after the idea was raised by women who came forward. The vision document said: “We also heard about a lack of awareness amongst some GPs of the causes of infertility, miscarriages and their relationship with infertility, and the reasons for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) failure.”

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Source: The Guardian, 22 December 2021

Related reading

Gender bias: A threat to women’s health (August 2020)

Dangerous exclusions: The risk to patient safety of sex and gender bias

Patient Safety Learning: Women’s Health Strategy Consultation Response

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Ministers plan to use NHS app to expand clinical trials as part of UK-wide drive

The government is aiming for a significant expansion of clinical trials in the UK, and plans to use the NHS app to encourage millions of people in England to take part in the search for new treatments.

Patients will eventually be automatically matched with studies based on their health data and interests, via the app. The plans envisage alerting them to the trials using smartphone notifications.

NHS trusts that fail to meet targets on trials will also be publicly named, and the best performers will be prioritised for funding, as part of improvements designed to restore Britain’s global reputation for medical research.

The strategy is one of the first to emerge from the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for England. It aims to take advantage of changes simplifying NHS records by quickly identifying people suitable for a trial. It will also include measures to streamline the paperwork required for the studies.

It is hoped the reforms will speed up the trials process and attract more pharmaceutical companies to host them in Britain, as ministers in all departments are ordered to find pro-growth measures.

The 10-year health plan will promise to slash set-up times for trials. While it takes about 100 days to set up a trial in Spain, it now takes 250 days in the NHS. The plan will push for commercial clinical trial set-up times to fall to a maximum of 150 days by March 2026.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2025

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Ministers order review into Covid-hit ambulance chiefs telling people to get a lift to A&E

A health minister has asked NHS England to look into a stricken ambulance trust that is asking patients to get a lift to A&E.

The North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) said staff should “consider asking the patient to be transported by friends or family.” See previous news story.

NEAS medical director Dr Mathew Beattie said the service had “no option than to try to work differently” amid Covid staff shortages.

However, Health Minister Gillian Keegan said she would ask NHS England to look into the situation.

She told Sky News: "That is not what we have put in place at all. We have more ambulance crews in operation than we have ever had."

“We also gave £55 million extra just for this period to cover staff and make sure we had increases in staff and staffing levels.

"I've actually asked NHS England to look at that particular case because that doesn't sound to me like that's an acceptable approach.

“People should be able to get an ambulance if they have a heart attack and that's why we've put that extra funding in place, and why we've been building up our ambulance service over the last couple of years."

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Source: Mirror, 5 January 2022

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Ministers order ‘rapid review’ into mental health inpatient care in England

Ministers have ordered an inquiry into the quality of care in mental health inpatient units in England after a series of scandals in which vulnerable patients were abused or neglected.

Maria Caulfield, the mental health minister, announced the establishment of a “rapid review” in a written ministerial statement in the House of Commons on Monday.

The inquiry “is an essential first step in improving safety in mental health inpatient settings”, she said. In recent years, coroners and the Care Quality Commission, the NHS care watchdog, have repeatedly raised concerns about dangerously inadequate care that inpatients have received.

It will examine the evidence of “patient safety risks and failures in care” in units that hold and treat patients who have serious conditions including psychosis and personality disorder. It will look in particular at evidence of failings brought forward by patients and their families and how better use of data can help show that care has fallen below acceptable levels.

The inquiry will be headed by Dr Geraldine Strathdee, a psychiatrist who used to be NHS England’s national clinical director for mental health. She is likely to look at problems including patients being subjected to controversial restraint techniques, left at risk of being able to take their own lives and segregated from fellow inpatients, and the impact of their experiences on their recovery.

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Source: The Guardian, 23 January 2023

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Ministers name 30 trusts receiving share of £250m fund

Ministers have named the 30 trusts which will receive a share of a £250m fund to increase urgent and emergency care capacity.

The £250m pot is part of commitments made earlier this year in the NHS urgent and emergency care recovery plan, which pledged £1bn for 2023-24 to increase capacity (see full list of schemes in table below).

Trust leaders welcomed the funding but raised concerns about the announcement, stating that much of the extra capacity would not be in place until January and also raised questions about how extra beds would be staffed.

The funding will go towards creating 900 “new” hospital beds ahead of winter, which includes more than 60 intermediate care beds, improving assessment spaces and cubicles in accident and emergency departments, and developing or expanding urgent treatment centres and same day emergency care services.

NHS England expected the “majority” of these schemes will be completed by January, the announcement said.

This article contains a list of the schemes and how much funding each will receive.

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Source: HSJ, 15 August 2023

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Ministers must fix ‘vicious cycle’ of short staffing in NHS mental health care, MPs warn

NHS mental health services are stuck in a “vicious cycle” of short staffing and overwhelming pressures, a government committee has warned.

Rising demand for mental health services has “outstripped” the number of staff working within NHS organisations, according to the public accounts committee.

A report from the committee warned that ministers must act to get services out of a “doom loop” in which staff shortages is hitting morale and leading people to quit the already-stretched services.

It found staffing across mental health services has increased by 22% between 2016 and 17 and 2021 and 22 while referrals for care have increased by 44% over the same period.

Healthcare leaders warned there are 1.8 million people on the waiting list for NHS mental health care with hospital bosses “deeply concerned”.

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Source: The Independent, 21 July 2023

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Ministers missed chances to prepare social care for a pandemic, review finds

Distress and heartbreak for millions could have been avoided if the government had not missed opportunities to prepare social care for a pandemic, according to a big investigation into how the first wave of Covid hit care homes.

A review of events in spring 2020, when almost 20,000 care home residents died with Covid in England and Wales, found it was the result of “letting one of our most important public services languish in constant crisis for years”.

A two-year study by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank and the London School of Economics found successive governments failed to respond to risks already exposed by cross-government pandemic planning exercises, didn’t have enough civil servants working on social care, and failed to appreciate the sector’s fragility when sending patients into ill-prepared care homes.

The study is the latest independent assessment to undermine the claim by the former health secretary, Matt Hancock, to have thrown “a protective ring around social care”. It comes before the Covid-19 public inquiry’s investigation into the care sector, the timing of which has yet to be announced.

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Source: The Guardian, 5 May 2023

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Ministers may order inquiry or review over English mental health care failings

Ministers may order a public inquiry into mental health care and patient deaths across England because of the number of scandals that are emerging involving poor treatment.

Maria Caulfield, the minister for mental health, told MPs on Thursday that she and the health secretary, Steve Barclay, were considering whether to launch an inquiry because the same failings were occurring so often in so many different parts of the country.

They would make a final decision “in the coming days”, she said in the House of Commons, responding to an urgent question tabled by her Labour shadow, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan.

An independent investigation found this week that that three teenage girls – Christie Harnett, 17, Nadia Sharif, 17, and Emily Moore, 18 – took their own lives within the space of eight months after receiving inadequate care from the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV) NHS mental health trust in north-east England.

They died after “multifaceted and systemic failings” by the trust, especially at its West Lane hospital in Middlesbrough, the inquiry found.

Allin-Khan pointed to a series of scandals that have come to light, often through media investigations, about dangerously substandard mental health care being provided by NHS services and also private firms in England, including in Essex and in Greater Manchester.

“Patients are dying, being bullied, dehumanised, abused and their medical records are being falsified, a scandalous breach of patient safety,” Allin-Khan said. “The government has failed to learn from past failings.”

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Source: The Guardian, 3 November 2022

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Ministers lose infected blood vote after Tory MPs revolt

MPs have backed a move to speed up compensation for victims of the NHS infected blood scandal, delivering the prime minister his first Commons defeat.

Ministers will now have to set up a body to run the scheme within three months of a new bill becoming law.

The vote was passed by 246 votes to 242 after 22 Conservatives rebelled.

The Haemophilia Society said Rishi Sunak "should be ashamed" he had been forced "to do the right thing".

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Source: BBC News, 5 December 2023

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Ministers in legal move to cut nurse strike short

Health Secretary Steve Barclay is to ask judges to rule whether part of the next nurse strike is unlawful.

The government wants the High Court to assess whether Tuesday - the last day of the walkout in England - falls outside the Royal College of Nursing's six-month mandate for action.

It believes the mandate will have lapsed by Tuesday - the 48-hour strike is due to start at 20:00 BST on Sunday.

The RCN accused ministers of using "draconian anti-union legislation".

Mr Barclay's decision to take legal action follows a request from hospital bosses.

The RCN argues the strike falls within the required six-month period from when votes were cast in its ballot for industrial action.

But NHS Employers said it had legal advice that the action would be unlawful.

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Source: BBC News, 24 April 2023

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Ministers failing to reform ‘restrictive’ primary care rules

The government has failed to change ‘restrictive’ legislation which would enable primary care reform – despite repeated announcements – a pharmacy leader has said.

Currently, pharmacy technicians cannot take on dispensing tasks without supervision from a pharmacist but the government promised in 2019 to look at how legislation can be updated to allow pharmacy technicians to take more of a role in dispensing, as part of the current five-year Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework, which ends next year.

The government has repeatedly announced and reannounced over the past five years that it wants to remove restrictions to give community pharmacy an expanded role.

But in a new report shared exclusively with HSJ, the Company Chemists’ Association – the trade body with members including Asda, Boots, Lloyds Pharmacy and Superdrug – highlights that government has failed to make progress.

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Source: HSJ, 7 June 2023

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Ministers ditch NHS England’s A&E target review

Ministers have effectively ditched NHS England’s planned new bundle of A&E targets and want trusts to be firmly regulated on the existing four-hour standard and 12-hour breaches, HSJ understands.

Multiple senior figures familiar with the process, from inside the NHS and government, said the performance focus for the next two years will be on the two existing accident and emergency waiting time measures, as well as ambulance handover delays.

For the last three years, NHS England has been lobbying government to scrap the headline four-hour target, and replace it with a bundle of measures which have been trialled at around a dozen providers. This work has been led by medical director Steve Powis.

HSJ understands the decision to continue using the existing four-hour target was driven by concerns among ministers and senior NHS figures that the bundle of measures was too confusing, both for patients and as a means for government to hold the service to account.

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Source: HSJ, 23 November 2022

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Ministers delaying inquiry into treatment of migrant carers, RCN says

Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees.

Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.

Despite the government’s promises to clamp down on abusive practices by rogue employers and agencies, the RCN says it continues to receive more than 100 calls a year from nurses who say they are being mistreated.

Ranger said in her letter: “The RCN is deeply concerned by reports of exploitative workplace practices that many international educated nursing staff in the care sector face. Our members report a range of issues from long working hours, excessive repayment fees to exit contracts, substandard and crowded accommodation, and illegal work finding fees.”

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Source: The Guardian, 7 March 2025

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