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Baby death inquiry delayed by leadership confusion

Investigations into serious maternity safety concerns have been delayed by at least six months because national agencies could not decide who should lead the work, HSJ has learned.

Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust announced in May it would commission reviews of mortality linked to maternity and neonatal services. This followed a BBC Panorama documentary in January, which claimed cultural and staffing problems had caused avoidable baby deaths.

But, six months on, the review of maternity services has still not started, and the neonatal review did not begin until recent weeks – and is not due to complete until late this year, nearly 12 months after the BBC programme.

The trust said it was still working with NHS England to appoint an “external assessor” for the maternity review, while an NHSE regional team has now begun examining the neonatal deaths.

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Source: HSJ, 5 November 2024

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‘Tension’ and ‘poor behaviours’ uncovered on trust’s board

The board of a mental health trust grappling with serious culture and safety concerns is “not functioning well”, an NHS England investigation has found, amid the early departure of its chair.

Black Country Healthcare Foundation Trust has faced several challenges this year with poor staff survey results, a long-running dispute between the provider and its medical consultant group, and NHS England’s Midlands team being sent several letters by anonymous groups of staff on a range of serious issues.

The NHS England investigation found staff across the organisation “consider that the board is not functioning well, and that it is not able to resolve conflicts constructively.”

A report of the findings, published this week, added: “There has been a tolerance of poor behaviours at board and a hesitancy previously to tackle them.

“There is a need to refresh and reset relationships built on trust and respect, to create an environment where people feel comfortable to raise concerns in board meetings, not outside, [and] to enable resolution.”

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Source: HSJ, 5 November 2024

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Sectioned patients to avoid being locked in cells in overhaul of mental health system

Patients sectioned under the Mental Health Act will have more dignity and a say over their care under proposed reforms to what has been described as an “outdated” system.

Among the changes as part of the Mental Health Bill, which will come before parliament on Wednesday, police cells and prison cells will no longer be used for people experiencing a mental health crisis, with patients instead expected to be looked after within a suitable healthcare facility.

In July’s King’s Speech, Labour vowed to update the Mental Health Act in a bid to shift the balance of power from the system to the patient, with the aim of putting service users at the centre of decisions about their own care.

Writing exclusively for The Independent, health secretary Wes Streeting raised the story of Georgie, who was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at 16, forced to quit school, and admitted to a mental health ward.

Health secretary Wes Streeting has promised that the new bill will address a significant shift in attitudes to mental illness (PA Wire)

“Despite complying with treatment, she was assessed by a clinician and then detained under the Mental Health Act,” he said.

Mr Streeting added: “Her autonomy was removed and she was left feeling defeated and hopeless. This dehumanising treatment is how patients are too often treated, in this country, in 2024, under the law.”

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Source: The Independent, 6 November 2024

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NHS doctors say lengthy disciplinary processes have left them feeling suicidal

UK doctors are having suicidal thoughts because disciplinary proceedings against them by their NHS employer take so long to resolve, research has found.

Medics who have been accused of misconduct say the current system of investigating allegations is “brutal” and “humiliating” to go through and can feel “like a witch-hunt”.

Three out of four doctors who had faced proceedings said the length of time it took to conclude them damaged their mental health and led to them suffering anxiety, stress and depression.

Almost nine out of 10 (88%) said they were left feeling angry and frustrated by the disciplinary process. Four out of five were left feeling as if they were “guilty until proven innocent”, with some complaining that they were treated “like a criminal”.

Half of the doctors who recounted their experience as part of the MPS’s study said they had been accused of wrongdoing after raising concerns about patient safety where they worked. That prompted concern that misconduct charges are used as part of a “culture of fear” in the NHS.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 November 2024

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New time critical medication resources for health professionals launched

Three new resources have been launched by the Parkinson’s Excellence Network to support UK healthcare professionals in hospitals to improve the delivery of time critical medication for people with Parkinson’s: 

  • An interactive resource showing which NHS organisations have pledged action on time critical medication. Access the map now.
  • Benchmarking to improve the delivery of time critical medication at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust: best practice case study. Read the case study. 
  • Self administration: a patient-centred approach to administering time critical Parkinson’s medication at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust: best practice case study. Find out more about self administration.

You can read more about all of this and more in the latest time critical medication blog.

Access all of the time critical medication resources.

Source: Parkinson's UK, 4 November 2024

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'Absolute chaos' as GP practices across England hit by EMIS outage

GP practices across England faced ‘chaos' on 4 November after an EMIS IT system outage cut off access to appointment booking systems and left clinicians unable to see patient records.

EMIS is the most widely-used GP practice IT system in England, in use at more than half of practices across the country - and practices as far apart as London, Cheshire and Bristol were reporting an outage on the morning of Monday 4 November.

Dr Selvaseelan Selvarajah, a GP at St Andrews Health Centre in East London told GPonline that staff first flagged the issue at around 7.30am on 4 November.  He said: ‘We came in this morning, it worked for a few seconds and then there was the wheel of doom. We restarted the system a few times and it still did not work, then we raised it with the EMIS team.’

Dr Selvarajah added: ‘Mondays are always busy but this has been chaotic. It is a patient safety issue too, because we have a complex issue of not being able to access medications and hospital letters. EMIS told us that it is unavailable for some users and they are treating it as a high priority issue.' He said that from what he had heard, GP practices across the country had been affected.

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Source: GP Online, 4 November 2024

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GPs plan to triple on-day ‘hub’ appointments

A system-wide GP provider collaborative will significantly expand on-the-day centralised “hubs” as part of its plan to transform general practice, it has announced.

A draft plan for the future of general practice in Cornwall has been developed by its General Practice Collaborative Board, including the county’s primary care network clinical directors, Kernow Local Medical Committee, and GP federation Kernow Health.

A big part of its draft plan is to substantially develop segmentation of patients. Under this, growing numbers of people would be sent to centralised “hubs” for non-complex but urgent appointments.

The registered population would be assigned to red, amber or green categories in the GP IT system. Around half of practice appointments would be protected for amber and red patients – the most vulnerable, with ongoing conditions – while green patients, who are generally well, would more often be sent to hubs.

This kind of approach has proven controversial in some areas in recent years, particularly integrated care board proposals in north west London; although many areas have adopted some form of urgent care hubs. 

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Source: HSJ, 4 November 2024

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Nursing and medical director failed to act on suicide risks, court told

A trust’s nursing director and associate medical director should have reduced risk on a mental health inpatient ward by ensuring bin liners were removed, a court has heard.

North East London Foundation Trust and its ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa have been charged with manslaughter by gross negligence concerning the death by suicide of mental health inpatient Alice Figueiredo, who died aged 22 on a NELFT ward in 2015.

Both the trust and the ward manager deny the charges.

Mr Aninakwa failed to remove bin bags from a communal toilet on Hepworth Ward at Goodmayes Hospital in Ilford, jurors heard on Monday, as the prosecution began to make its case. Prosecutors said this meant Ms Figueiredo was repeatedly able to access the plastic bin liners, which she had used in 18 earlier suicide attempts.

Giving the prosecution’s opening statement, Mr Duncan Atkinson KC said: “The failure in the completion and analysis of Datix records, and the failure to issue appropriate guidance to make plastic bags — a recognised means of self-harm generally; and a clear means by which Alice had herself self-harmed — inaccessible to patients like Alice, can be attributed to the senior management through the director of nursing and the associate medical director, amongst others.”

He added: “These failings by the trust and by its senior management were so truly exceptionally bad as to amount to gross negligence.”

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Source: HSJ, 4 November 2024

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Doctors paid up to £200,000 overtime to tackle NHS backlog

Senior doctors are charging the NHS premium rates for overtime, as pressure to cut waiting lists is allowing some to make more than £200,000 a year from additional work, a BBC News investigation has found.

That is nearly double the average basic pay for a full-time consultant in England.

Many of the consultants earning the most are thought to be part-time, allowing them to work significant amounts of overtime for rates exceeding £200 an hour – more than four times normal pay.

In response, Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC: "I don't think the rates are acceptable. Every penny that goes into the NHS needs to be well spent."

But the British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors' union, pointed out the NHS would not have to rely so much on overtime were it not for staffing shortages.

And hospitals said covering for strike days and sickness had also been factors.

The findings come as the government invests more money in the NHS, to increase the number of appointments and operations it can offer – a key election promise made by Labour.

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Source: BBC News, 5 November 2024

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NHSE desire to please government forcing finance chiefs to agree undeliverable plans

One of the NHS’s foremost finance figures has joined the chorus of senior healthcare leaders raising serious concerns about the damaging effect of the way the service’s annual planning round is conducted. 

Hardev Virdee is the group finance officer of Barts Health Trust, the junior vice president of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and the chair of the NHS National Finance Academy.

In an interview with HSJ, he said:

  • The planning process was undermining the credibility of both the financial plans it produced and the senior NHS finance staff involved.
  • This “erosion of credibility” had grown over the last five years.
  • NHS England’s main goal was to produce financial plans that were acceptable to government, rather than being sustainable or credible.
  • The process means finance directors and boards are increasingly having to “consider unethical options”.
  • The pressure felt by many senior NHS finance professionals is seriously affecting their morale, causing some to leave the sector, and discouraging others from taking on the most senior and toughest jobs.

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Source: HSJ, 4 November 2024

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Families who had babies switched at birth in 1967 in line for NHS compensation

Families of two babies reportedly switched at birth in an NHS hospital in 1967 are now in line for compensation in the first case of its kind.

The baby girls, now grown women named in reports only as Claire and Jessica, were switched at an NHS West Midlands hospital shortly after birth but their families only discovered the mistake 55 years later, according to the BBC.

The truth was discovered only after the brother of one of the women, took a DNA test in 2021, which listed another woman as his full sibling.

He contacted the woman and it was quickly realised she had been another baby girl born at the same hospital around the same time.

It is extremely rare for incidents of babies being switched at birth to occur. A freedom of information request in 2017 revealed there had been no recorded cases of babies being sent home with the wrong family.

Since the 1980s, newborns have been given radio frequency identification (RFID) tags immediately after their birth, which allow their location to be tracked.

NHS Resolution, which deals with complaints against the NHS, told the BBC the switch was an “appalling error” and that it had accepted legal liability.

It told the BBC that it was a “unique and complex case” and that it was still working to agree on the amount of compensation that was due.

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Source: The Independent, 4 November 2024

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ADHD drug shortage 'nightmare' for Kent families

Some people in Kent with ADHD say a shortage of vital medications is making life a "living nightmare".

The lack of medications at pharmacies has even left some people waiting years to get the drugs prescribed for them.

Some said they regularly have to ring dozens of pharmacies before finding their medication or drive up to 20 miles (32km) to collect treatments, while one person has resorted to paying £200 a month to get hers privately.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said that, while the majority of medicines were in good supply, it is working to resolve issues caused by complex and highly regulated global supply chains.

Single mother Tracy McKenzie has ADHD, along with her 10-year-old daughter and teenage son.

"My son is on a high strength of stimulant medication and without it becomes impulsive and aggressive," said Ms McKenzie, from Dartford.

"Every month I worry about trying to get medication for us all, which then impacts my own mental health.

"I phone many chemists within a 20-mile radius to find which has it in stock and pray that, by the time the doctor writes the prescription, someone else hasn't managed to get the last of it before me.

"It's a living nightmare."

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Source: BBC News, 4 November 2024

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Austerity increased rates of premature births in UK, research says

Austerity measures, originally introduced by the coalition government in 2010, led to a dramatic increase in premature births and low-weight births, a new study has shown.

Birth rates in Scotland found “marked increases” in babies born smaller or prematurely were particularly evident in the most deprived areas, according to the researchers.

The study, published in the European Journal of Medicine, showed trends in low birth rates and premature birth changes within one to three years after austerity was implemented. Premature birth was the main driver of smaller weights.

For babies born in the 20 per cent most deprived areas premature birth rates increased by around 25 per cent, after declining year on year prior 2012.

Researchers said: “Hugely concerning changes to health outcomes have been observed in the UK since the early 2010s, including reductions in life expectancy and widening of inequalities. These have been attributed to UK government ‘austerity’ policies which have profoundly affected poorer populations.”

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Source: The Independent, 3 November 2024

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A quarter of paediatric deaths at hospitals are preventable, study finds

Investing in paediatric emergency care could save lives more than 2,100 lives each year, new research found.

The study also reported that a quarter of childhood deaths are preventable and investing in the care could save more children.

The price of such an investment would be modest, ranging from no cost to $11.84 per child, according to Oregon Health & Science University physicians.

Implementing new standards of paediatric care across hospital may have prevented an estimated 2,143 of the 7,619 paediatric deaths that occur in emergency departments or following admission from emergency departments each year, the study noted.

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Source: The Independent, 2 November 2024

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Revealed: the ongoing impact of delays to ‘new hospital’ schemes

Infrastructure failings have led to over 1,000 operations being cancelled in the past two years at just 14 trusts whose rebuilding plans have been placed under review by the new government, HSJ can reveal.

Ceiling leaks, flooding, broken ventilation systems, pest infestations and many other issues have caused the disruption. 

HSJ has tracked cancelled operations caused by infrastructure incidents across trusts in the 40 "new hospitals" programme since 2019, the year the plan was first announced by former health secretary Matt Hancock. The programme has been plagued by delays and rising costs ever since. 

Many schemes remain in limbo five years on and are facing the threat of even more delays after Labour announced it was reviewing the programme and planned to come up with a new "realistic" delivery timetable. Health secretary Wes Streeting has promised to reveal the outcome “in the coming weeks”. 

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Source: HSJ, 1 November 2024

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‘NHS left my daughter alone in A&E for seven hours having seizures’

Asenior midwife has said she is “disgusted” at the NHS care her daughter received and that she was forced to step in and tend to other patients herself during recent visits to an A&E department.

Donna Ockenden, who has led government-commissioned reviews into patient safety, said Phoebe, her 20-year-old daughter who has epilepsy, was “failed” by A&E staff at one department.

She said her daughter, who has learning disabilities, was left in a waiting room by staff for seven hours while still having seizures after she was transferred to hospital in an ambulance.

She said: “It was Phoebe’s third attendance in A&E in the last weeks. During the first two [visits] I was with her and I was her advocate. It was still pretty rubbish … but for the third I was in Dubai on holiday and woke up to messages about Phoebe being in A&E.

“Despite her learning disabilities and being known to the service she was dropped off in the waiting room on her own. She is 20 but she is really vulnerable, and was left in a chair for seven hours, still having some seizures.

“Initially she was left in the waiting area on her own. It’s just unspeakable, it’s absolutely disgusting and disgraceful.”

Ockenden, who led inquiries into NHS maternity scandals at Shrewsbury and Nottingham hospital trusts, said her daughter was only “just about kept safe” during her first two A&E visits because she was with her.

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Source: The Times, 31 October 2024

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Parents are putting more trust into ChatGPT than actual doctors, study finds

Parents are trusting ChatGPT for medical advice over actual doctors and nurses, a new study found.

Researchers at the University of Kansas also found that parents also say AI-generated text is credible, trustworthy and moral.

“When we began this research, it was right after ChatGPT first launched — we had concerns about how parents would use this new, easy method to gather health information for their children,” lead author and doctoral student Calissa Leslie-Miller said in a release. “Parents often turn to the internet for advice, so we wanted to understand what using ChatGPT would look like and what we should be worried about.”

Participants in the study were given health-related text, reviewing content generated by healthcare professionals and the OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT. They were not told who, or what, authored the texts. They were asked to rate the texts based on five criteria - perceived morality, trustworthiness, expertise, accuracy and how likely they would be to rely on the information.

In many cases, parents couldn’t tell which content was generated by ChatGPT or by the experts. When there were significant differences in ratings, ChatGPT was rated to be more trustworthy, accurate and reliable than the expert-generated content.

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Source: The Independent, 30 October 2024

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NHS sends vulnerable adults to private hospital accused of abuse

Vulnerable adult patients have been sent by the NHS to a private hospital after it closed its children’s service just weeks ago following abuse allegations, The Independent can reveal.

Joyce Parker Hospital in Coventry, run by private hospital giant Cygnet Health Care, was accused by Care Quality Commission of failing to protect child patients from physical abuse by staff, following an inspection this summer.

A letter leaked to The Independent revealed inspectors saw CCTV evidence of staff “dragging” children around while restrained.

Cygnet Health Care, on which the NHS spends hundreds of millions of pounds for mental health beds, closed its children’s service in September following the allegations.

Weeks later the service reopened as a service for male adults and The Independent can reveal local NHS commissioners have already placed patients in the hospital, despite the previous abuse allegations.

Deborah Coles, chief executive for charity INQUEST, which has represented families of patients who’ve died in care, said: “This recycling of services, despite damning criticisms, is a loophole that needs to close.”

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Source: The Independent, 31 October 2024

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Ian Paterson tells inquest women ‘didn’t need to know’ about unauthorised mastectomy

The jailed breast surgeon Ian Paterson has said he did not tell women if he was going to perform an unauthorised cleavage-sparing mastectomy on them because “it was frightening and they didn’t need to or want to know”.

Giving evidence for the first time at an inquest into the deaths of 62 of his former patients, Paterson said he considered a cleavage-sparing mastectomy to be an “adaptation of a standard operation” that did not require separate consent.

After previously refusing to give evidence in the hearings, Paterson spoke on Thursday at the inquest of Elaine Turbill, who died, aged 63, in 2017 when her cancer returned after undergoing a mastectomy carried out by Paterson in 2005.

The inquest heard that at a recall clinic in 2010, it was recorded that 20% of her breast tissue had been left behind after the operation.

Speaking via video link from prison, where he is serving a 20-year sentence for multiple counts of wounding linked to unnecessary operations he carried out on patients, Paterson said he did not explain the procedure in detail to his patients.

“Most ladies know what a mastectomy is. I never went into great detail, it scares them and I don’t think they hear it, they just hear the word cancer,” he said. “This lady [Turbill] would have been taken into a separate room with a breast care nurse and would have discussed things in more detail.”

He later said: “It was frightening and [patients] didn’t need to or want to know.”

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Source: The Guardian, 31 October 2024

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Alert over steep rise in handover delays

An ambulance trust is warning that delays handing patients over to hospitals have “significantly deteriorated” in the past two months, with one waiting nearly 20 hours.

West Midlands Ambulance Service University Foundation Trust said October was set to be its second worst month on record for hours lost to delays outside hospitals.

It said the delays were set to amount to 42,000 crew hours in October for the region, the equivalent of 130 vehicles each day. In August the figure fell to 20,000 hours but they have since surged towards a level seen in the worst months of the past two winters.

This has pushed average response times for category 2 calls – which include suspected heart attacks and strokes – to well over the 30-minute “interim” target, the trust said.

The trust said it had been trying to use an “immediate offload” protocol to speed up handovers – which is backed by NHS England where there are category 1 or 2 calls waiting – but only 43% of its 1,259 requests were accepted by the acute trust involved, in the first three weeks of October.

Every day at least one person had to wait more than eight hours to be offloaded; and one wait in Worcester reached 19h35m. 

Staff are raising concerns about getting food and drink for patients and themselves; working shifts of up to 17 hours; lost training opportunities; as well as difficulties providing care in the vehicles.

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Source: HSJ, 1 November 2024

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AI model predicts patients at most risk of complication during treatment for advanced kidney failure

Artificial intelligence experts and healthcare professionals in Portsmouth have come together to help prevent a common and painful complication in advanced kidney failure treatment.

A study led by the University of Portsmouth and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHUT) has developed an AI model to predict which patients are most at risk of their blood pressure dropping during dialysis; a condition known as intradialytic hypotension (IDH).

3 million people have Chronic Kidney Disease in the UK and 31,000 of these are on haemodialysis (Kidney Care UK), where their blood is circulated through a machine to clean it of toxins.

One of the most common complications for patients undergoing this treatment at home or in centres is IDH, which occurs when their blood pressure drops suddenly. It is associated with increased mortality and hospitalisations, and until now there has been no reliable way to predict if it will occur.

Pre-dialysis and real-time data were collected from 10 treatment centres over two decades (2000-2020), involving 3,944 patients. The team used data comprising a total of 73,323 sessions with 36,662 IDH events.

Using this information, they identified 33 variables to determine the most at-risk individuals. These were all observations that are routinely collected during clinical care, such as weight, temperature, age, blood pressure, medication and treatment details.

Project lead, Dr Shamsul Masum from the University’s School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, said: “This research highlights the value of using machine learning in healthcare, particularly in complex situations like haemodialysis. Predicting hypotension not only helps clinicians intervene early but also opens the door to personalised care.

"As we continue to develop and refine these models, the goal is to create a practical decision-support system that could enhance dialysis management, patient safety and quality of care.”

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Source: University of Portsmouth, 23 October 2024

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Patients' voices to be heard in new safety review

A hospital trust has appointed a family liaison team to help patients and their families when things go wrong with treatment.

The move by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) is aimed at improving responses to patient safety incidents, by learning from their experiences.

A failure to deal properly with incidents of harm was highlighted by the Ockenden Report into maternity failings, but the Care Quality Commission praised SaTH for improvements in 2023, saying incidents were now "managed well".

The trust's director of nursing Hayley Flavell said: "We will continue to strive towards providing excellent care for the communities we serve."

The new members of staff will "prioritise and support the needs of patients and families" affected.

They will also help colleagues speak to patients and relatives in the right way, ensuring their experiences and concerns are acted on.

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Source: BBC News, 30 October 2024

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I had months of pain when MS drug was swapped for a cheaper one

When Jonelle Roback went into hospital for a monthly drug treatment infusion, she was shocked to find a piece of paper on her waiting room chair informing her that her medication was suddenly being switched.

Roback, 54, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2009, had been on the intravenous drug Tysabri for 13 years, which had enabled her to “live a normal life”.

But in May, as part of an NHS England drive to save money, Roback and other MS patients had their Tysabri medication changed to a “biosimilar” drug — a medicine that has been shown not to have any clinically meaningful differences from the originator drug — called Tyruko, which is cheaper.

This marked the start of a horrible ordeal, with Roback experiencing debilitating symptoms including headaches, nausea, fatigue and severe bloating.

She has since been in contact with dozens of other MS patients who have also experienced difficulties after having their medication switched, and they have expressed “urgent concerns” to the NHS about the failure to properly consult patients about their treatment.

A group of more than 30 patients, including Roback, have written to the NHS chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to raise concerns about the “forced treatment switch”.

The letter says that some patients had their drug changed without their knowledge, adding: “The lack of communication and transparency has led to serious side-effects, stress, loss of earnings, and other detrimental impacts on our lives. We have discovered that we are effectively being used as ‘guinea pigs’ for this new treatment.”

Roback said it is vital that patients are given an active voice in medication decisions, adding: “It is outrageous that there was no discussion or consultation about changing the medication, just a piece of paper left on a chair. There was nothing we could do about it."

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Source: The Times, 25 October 2024

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First case of new potentially deadly mpox strain Clade 1b detected in UK

The first UK case of a potentially deadly strain of the mpox virus has been detected in London.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the risk to the UK population from the clade 1b mpox strain “remains low”.

The person involved had been on holiday in Africa and travelled back to the UK on an overnight flight on 21 October.

They developed flu-like symptoms more than 24 hours later and, on 24 October, started to develop a rash which worsened in the following days.

The person attended an emergency department in London on 27 October, where they were swabbed, tested and sent home to isolate while waiting for the results.

Fewer than 10 people who are thought to have come into contact with the patient are initially being traced, the UKHSA said. These are household contacts, although the UKHSA is “still working” on the number of people it may have to contact trace.

Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at UKHSA, said: “It is thanks to our surveillance that we have been able to detect this virus. This is the first time we have detected this clade of mpox in the UK, though other cases have been confirmed abroad.

“The risk to the UK population remains low, and we are working rapidly to trace close contacts and reduce the risk of any potential spread. In accordance with established protocols, investigations are underway to learn how the individual acquired the infection and to assess whether there are any further associated cases.”

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Source: The Independent, 31 October 2024

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Chancellor announces £22.6bn cash injection for NHS in England

The NHS in England is to receive a £22.6bn cash injection over two years, the chancellor has announced, in what she called the biggest spending increase outside Covid since 2010. But health experts said patients may not feel the impact as much of the increase would be absorbed by pay rises and higher care costs.

Announcing the “down payment” on the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS, due in spring 2025, Rachel Reeves said the NHS was the nation’s “most cherished public service” and that the extra funding would help the government cut waiting lists.

“This is the largest real-terms growth in day-to-day NHS spending outside of Covid since 2010,” she said. “Because of this record injection of funding, because of the thousands of additional beds that we have secured, and because of the reforms that we are delivering in our NHS, we can now begin to bring waiting lists down more quickly and move towards our target for waiting times to be no longer than 18 weeks by delivering on our manifesto commitment for 40,000 extra hospital appointments a week.”

Health experts welcomed the extra funding but cautioned that more investment in the NHS would be needed for patients to notice the difference. Siva Anandaciva, the chief analyst at the King’s Fund thinktank, said: “The health spending announced today is unlikely to be enough for patients to see a real improvement in the care they receive.”

While the budget increase would help sustain services, “it is unlikely to drastically improve care over the rest of this year, and certainly not overnight”, he added, because much of the £22.6bn extra would be absorbed by NHS staff pay increases and the rising cost of delivering care.

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Source: The Guardian, 30 October 2024

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