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News Article
‘Hips, knees and eyes’ funding focus ‘not fair’, says medical leader
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Physical health and “hips, knees and eyes” still command the lion’s share of government money, despite persistent calls for fairer mental health funding, the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ departing president has told HSJ. Adrian James also said future leaders must tackle bed and workforce shortages, while upcoming inquiries into poor care must allow people to speak openly without fear. NHS England CEO Amanda Pritchard has called the minimum investment standard for mental health “non-negotiable”. However, in an interview with HSJ, Dr James said mental health services are often missing out while “big chunks” of government money are allocated to reduce waiting lists. He said: “The [covid] recovery plan that was negotiated with the government really was about your hips, knees and eyes, in spite of big voices – one of them mine – saying, ‘what about the mental health backlog’. At that point, we didn’t get any extra money.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 18 July 2023 -
Content ArticleThis report assesses why NHS hospitals are failing to deliver higher activity despite higher spending on the service and higher levels of staffing over the last couple of years. It argues that politicians need to urgently focus on capital investment, staff retention and boosting management capacity, and sets out key questions for policy makers to address if they want to solve the NHS crisis. The NHS has been on a longer-term negative trajectory: most of the challenges identified in the report existed before the pandemic and have been exacerbated since.
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News Article
NHS’s mounting failures and political neglect laid bare in sobering report
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
What would the NHS see if it looked in a mirror, asks Siva Anandaciva, author of the King’s Fund’s study comparing the health service with those of 18 other rich countries, in the introduction to his timely and sobering 118-page report. The answer, he says, is “a service that has seen better days”. Britons die sooner from cancer and heart disease than people in many other rich countries, partly because of the NHS’s lack of beds, staff and scanners, a study has found. The UK “underperforms significantly” on tackling its biggest killer diseases, in part because the NHS has been weakened by years of underinvestment, according to the report from the King’s Fund health thinktank. It “performs poorly” as judged by the number of avoidable deaths resulting from disease and injury and also by fatalities that could have been prevented had patients received better or quicker treatment. The comparative study of 19 well-off nations concluded that Britain achieves only “below average” health outcomes because it spends a “below average” amount for every person on healthcare. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 June 2023 -
Content ArticleThe King's Fund compared the healthcare systems in different countries by doing three things: Reviewed the research literature and assessed previous attempts to rank and compare health care systems. Interviewed academic experts in international health care policy and experts who had extensive knowledge of the UK, German and Singaporean healthcare systems. Analysed the latest quantitative performance data for the UK health care system and the health systems of 18 higher-income peer countries. They analysed data in three main domains: the context the health system operates in (eg, the health status and behaviours of the population) the resources a health system has (eg, levels of staffing, equipment and health care spending) how well the health care systems uses its resources and what it achieves as a result (eg, measures of efficiency in delivering services, quality of care, financial protection from the costs of ill health, and health care outcomes).
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News Article
AI to be deployed more widely across the NHS as new funding announced
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be rolled out more widely across the NHS in a bid to diagnose diseases and treat patients faster. The Government has announced a £21 million funding pot that NHS trusts can apply for to implement AI tools for the likes of medical imaging and decision support. This includes tools that analyse chest X-rays in suspected cases of lung cancer. AI technology that can diagnose strokes will also be available to all stroke networks by the end of 2023 – up from 86% – and could help patients get treated faster and lead to better health outcomes. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the technology could help cut NHS waiting lists ahead of winter. Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 June 2023 -
News ArticleThe current GP funding model ‘does not sit comfortably’ with NHS England’s plans for primary and community care integration, according to a senior NHS England director. In a Lords Committee hearing today, NHS England’s national director of primary and community care services Dr Amanda Doyle said a ‘rethink’ was required with regards to the primary care estate, with Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) tasked to draw up local plans. Asked whether the GP partnership model was compatible with integration, Dr Doyle told the committee that this was ‘one of the challenges’ they are facing. She said: "One of the challenges that the current predominant ownership model in general practice gives us is that both investment and revenue flows support that model [of] an individual, practice-sized building. "And lots of the things we want to do as we move forward into co-located primary care services and scaled-up primary care delivery drive the need for bigger premises with a wider range of capacity, and those two models don’t sit comfortably together." Read full story Source: Pulse, 19 June 2023
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Content ArticleThe public health grant is paid to local authorities from the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) budget. It is used to provide vital preventative services that help to support health. This includes smoking cessation, drug and alcohol services, children's health services and sexual health services, as well as broader public health support across local authorities and the NHS.
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News Article
‘Discrimination’ claim as ‘40 new hospitals’ snubs mental health
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A chief executive has compared a lack of investment into mental health estate to ‘institutionalised discrimination’, after no new schemes were accepted on to the ‘40 new hospitals’ programme. HSJ revealed that almost 50 capital projects from mental health trusts attempted to win one of the final places on the “new hospitals programme”, but all were taken by new acute schemes. Some of the trusts that submitted unsuccessful bids are using buildings which are more than 100 years old and were constructed without modern care practices in mind. Many of the bids raised safety concerns about the current estates. Joe Rafferty, chief executive of Mersey Care Foundation Trust, told HSJ: “If there’s been a priority order, mental health has been at the back of the queue. “It’s almost a sort of institutionalised discrimination in a way… there is a risk that the system itself is stigmatised or discriminated against mental health patients. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 31 May 2023 -
News Article
Outcry over 123 rejected ‘new hospital’ bids
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Multiple trusts have expressed disappointment at being overlooked in the government’s latest announcement on the ‘40 new hospitals’ programme. In 2021, ministers expanded the new hospitals programme by inviting bids for another eight projects to be funded nationally. However, last week they confirmed that just five new bids – all acute hospitals with unsafe roof plank structures – had been accepted. Multiple mental health trusts have also expressed frustration, after just one new mental health scheme has been included in the list of 40 “new” hospitals, although the government is counting three which were already in progress outside the programme. Joe Rafferty, chief executive of Mersey Care, has compared a lack of investment into mental health estate to “institutionalised discrimination”. Bradford District Care said it was “very disappointing” to find out its bid to replace “wholly unsuitable” wards designed in the 1950s had not been accepted, adding: “Still no parity for mental health in the total NHP funding allocation so far.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 31 May 2023 -
Content ArticleIn a blog for the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive Helen Hughes highlights both the human and financial costs associated with the persistence of avoidable harm in healthcare. She outlines how Finance directors should play a key role in improving patient safety and argues that they have an essential corporate leadership role to ensure healthcare is both effective and safe.
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News Article
NHS still waiting for over £1bn capital funding announced five years ago
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than half of £2.7bn awarded to NHS organisations for capital projects in 2017 and 2018 has yet to be delivered, research by HSJ has discovered. The government announced almost £3bn in capital funding to upgrade NHS estates and services in four waves during 2017 and 2018. This was before the pledge to build 40 “new hospitals” by 2030, which has since largely dominated decisions about NHS capital investment. HSJ looked at the progress of the 143 schemes, worth a total of £2.7bn, known to have been included in the “sustainability and transformation partnership” capital funding programmes. Only £1.2bn has been given to the organisations involved, and over a fifth of live schemes – which range from emergency department upgrades to new primary care hubs – have not received any allocated funds to date. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 15 May 2023 -
Content ArticleBetween 2000 and 2010, multi-year funding increases and a series of reforms resulted in major improvements in NHS performance. However, performance has declined since 2010 as a result of much lower funding increases, limited funds for capital investment and neglect of workforce planning. Constraints on social care spending have also resulted in fewer people receiving publicly funded social care and a repeated cycle of governments promising to reform social care but failing to do so. As a result, the health and social care sector now finds itself facing unprecedented challenges, from increasing demand and growing waiting lists, to a workforce in crisis. This report by Chris Ham, former Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, analyses how a major public service that is highly valued by the public was allowed to deteriorate. It focuses on the period since 2010 and the factors that contributed to the decline of the NHS after the progress that had been made in the previous decade. While the current situation can feel overwhelming, the improvements that occurred between 2000 and 2010 show that change is possible where the political will exists. The paper concludes by setting out what now needs to be done to sustain and reform the NHS, with a focus on spending decisions, moderating demand and sharing responsibility with patients and the public, alongside a long-term perspective.
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News Article
Fury greets cuts to funding for social care’s contribution to integration
Patient-Safety-Learning posted a news article in News
Confirmation the government has cut hundreds of millions from budgets partly designed to boost health and care integration has been met with fury, with the decision described as leaving the social care reform agenda in ‘tatters’. It was revealed last month that the £1.7bn promised in 2021’s social care white paper to strengthen the sector, and especially its contribution to more integrated services, was set to be drastically cut by ministers. Today’s announcement has confirmed the investment originally ear-marked for “investment in knowledge, skills, health and wellbeing, and recruitment policies [to] improve social care as a long-term career choice” has been cut from £500m to £250m, the £300m promised to “integrate housing into local health and care strategies" cut to zero. The white paper also promised “at least £150m” for investment in digital and technology, but today’s government announcement has capped this at £100m. Overall cuts to the series of reform programme are in the region of £600m. Only £520m has been allocated, and it is unclear where the rest of the original £1.7bn will be spent. Sarah McClinton, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, said the plan “takes us backwards” and “leaves the government’s vision for reform in tatters”, adding that it “ducks the hard decisions and kicks the can down the road again until after the next election.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 April 2023
