In England, a poll found that fewer than 8% of those questioned thought the government had the right policies in place for the NHS. In Scotland, the official auditor came to much the same conclusion, as Audit Scotland said more robust modelling and more detailed plans are needed to enable the NHS to recover and […]
The Royal College of Nursing announced a major escalation of its strike action over pay and conditions, with plans for a 48-hour walk out leaving hospitals with only limited cover in March. The Commons’ health and social care committee published an expert review of the government’s progress on its digital commitments that rated this ‘inadequate’. […]
Strikes continued in the NHS in England, as further evidence emerged of the financial pressure that the service is under. The Health Service Journal reported that more than half of the £2.1 billion of national funding that was promised for NHS IT in the Autumn Statement has been ‘diverted’ to filling in financial holes. Most […]
The DHSC and NHS England issued an urgent and emergency care recovery plan, which focused press attention on the potential of virtual wards. NHS Digital was formally merged into the NHS England transformation directorate, amid concerns about plans to cut large numbers of staff. Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust published a report into […]
Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay told the House of Commons that his department is going to develop a Major Conditions Strategy to address the six conditions that cause around 60% of disability adjusted life years in England. The NHS Confederation said it hoped this would lead to a genuine focus on reducing health […]
Strikes in the NHS continued everywhere except Scotland, where unions are negotiating with the devolved government. NHS England opened a voluntary redundancy scheme to help cut its headcount by 40%. People who worked for NHSX and NHSDigital appear to be covered by the first wave. Health minister Will Quince seems to be getting serious about […]
Ambulance staff in England and Wales struck again, as union relationships with the government deteriorated, and unions refused to submit evidence to the NHS’ pay review bodies for the coming year. Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay announced that £200 million would be spent on buying additional beds from care homes to try and […]
The NHS came under severe pressure over the Christmas and New Year break, triggering a political blame-game over who was responsible for the crisis, and union claims that ministers were missing in action as staff and patients suffered. NHS England issued its annual ‘to do’ list for the NHS, with three broad ‘tasks’ for 2023 […]
There wasn’t much sign of festive cheer in the health service, as nurses took part in a second day of industrial action, massive demand pushed ambulance and hospital trusts into declaring critical incidents, ministers took a harder and harder line on the action, and ambulance workers walked out. In health tech news, Great Ormond Street […]
The King’s Fund issued a government commissioned report on the state of the NHS and concluded that, while the Covid-19 pandemic had made things worse, its problems lay in a “decade of neglect” by successive Conservative administrations. Nurses went out on strike for the first time. The British Medical Association published a report showing that […]
