News in brief
Tim Kelsey to leave NHS England: Tim Kelsey, one of NHS England’s most high profile board members, is leaving the organisation to take a new job in Australia, reported Health Service Journal (HSJ, subscription required). He is joining Telstra Health, a division of Australian telecommunications provider Telstra Corp, which develops digital and mobile health products, as a commercial director. When Mr Kelsey took up his current role in 2012, he was charged with developing plans for a digital and paperless NHS, a task viewed by some as a poisoned chalice following the NHS’s disastrous National Programme for IT. Mr Kelsey said: “It has been an enormous privilege to work with such talented and committed colleagues at NHS England and across the wider health and care service. Together we have made the case for a digitally enabled NHS in which patients are encouraged to participate. Over the last three years we have made significant progress on turning that aspiration into reality.” NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said: “As the NHS moves into the implementation phase of the strategy Tim has helped craft, we wish him every success as he shifts gear to working in Australia and internationally.”
Lives being put at risk, NHS report suggests: An official report suggests differences in access to key NHS services, including stroke and cancer care, are putting patients at risk, BBC News reported. The NHS Atlas of Variation – published by NHS England and Public Health England – looks at service performance in more than 200 local areas. The report has been compiled using official data across more than 100 different areas of care. Extreme outliers – the very best and worst – are excluded to try to ensure the figures are not skewed by possible data collection errors. Patient groups called the findings “extremely concerning”, while NHS bosses warned action must be taken by local health chiefs as the variations in care would be costing lives and harming health. Alexis Wieroniey, of the Stroke Association, said: “Immediate treatment on a stroke patient is essential as this helps to minimise the long-term effects and can prevent death. Wherever they live, people must have an equal chance in getting the immediate treatment.” Also Nick Ormiston-Smith, Cancer Research UK’s head of statistics, added: “Cancer survival is improving, but these statistics show that cancer services are not meeting the needs of all patients. Improving early diagnosis and ensuring patients get the best possible treatments must be a priority for the NHS.”
Target of four-week cancer diagnosis: More details of plans to improve cancer care in England have been revealed. They include a target that 95% of people should be given a diagnosis or the all-clear within 28 days of being referred by a GP, by 2020, reported BBC News. The target – recommended by the Independent Cancer Taskforce – will be trialled in five hospitals before being rolled out nationwide if successful. Faster diagnosis could save 11,000 lives a year, the taskforce said. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK lagged behind other western European countries in cancer survival rates and the new measures would help “close the gap”. Mr Hunt added, speeding up diagnosis would require more cancer consultants, specialist nurses, staff trained in endoscopies and diagnostic tests. Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK and chairman of the Independent Cancer Taskforce, said: “Introducing the 28-day ambition for patients to receive a diagnosis will maximise the impact of this investment which, together with making results available online, will spare people unnecessary added anxiety and help cancer patients to begin treatment sooner,” he said.
CCIOs issue Newcastle Declaration: Clinical information leaders from across the NHS have issued a joint declaration calling for interoperability to be recognised as vital to safe, connected patient care, reported DigitalHealth.net. The ‘Newcastle Declaration’ was developed at the 2015 Chief Clinical Information Officer Network Summer School in Newcastle. The declaration said: “Too often, health and care professionals today lack key information available on those they care for, and have to make treatment decisions without access to all of the currently available knowledge, such as previous care and test results. Citizens and patients deserve better.” Five supporting technical principles on interoperability focus on APIs and standards and stress that legal data controllers, rather than suppliers, must make decisions about interoperability. Dr Joe McDonald, chair of the CCIO Network said: “We have come to the view that in a digital age and in a taxpayer funded health service, the citizen has a right to expect their vital information will be delivered to their care team without hindrance from healthcare or IT system providers.” The document said NHS and social care providers and commissioners have a key role to play and must require suppliers to adhere to common standards. They should ensure that support and maintenance of open APIs becomes a core requirement of all IT procurements and contracts.
Patients less likely to miss NHS appointments if they are warned of cost: Patients are far more likely not to miss a hospital appointment if they are warned how much their wasted slot will cost, new research shows, The Telegraph reported. More than 5m hospital outpatient appointments are missed every year – one in 10 of all slots. Most hospitals now send reminder text messages, in a bid to ensure patients do not forget. Telling patients that their failure to attend would cost the NHS approximately £160 reduced the level of missed appointments by almost one quarter. The figure reflects the budget for an average outpatients appointment at Barts Health NHS trust, which ran the study, with staff and buildings costs unchanged regardless of whether patients turn up. Lord Darzi, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation, said: “The NHS is busier than ever and hospitals need to make every single penny count for patients. But we all have a role to play in keeping the NHS sustainable for the future, and it’s clear that people feel a sense of responsibility. Telling patients the cost of missing an appointment shows clear benefits by filling more appointment slots while saving money.”
Seven-day GP access pilot delayed as commissioners ‘underestimated’ time needed for CQC registration: One of the Prime Minister’s pilots for seven-day GP access had to be delayed until later this year after commissioners failed to acknowledge the amount of time needed to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and make other clinical governance arrangements, reported Pulse. NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG received £2.6m from the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund to provide seven-day GP access, but had to delay its rollout from July to later this year. The CCG chair said this was due to problems with clinical governance arrangements, including the length of time needed for CQC registration. The pilot is part of the £100m second wave of the challenge fund, and is being funded for one year. Dr Gary Howsam, co-chair of the Peterborough primary care transformation board, said: “Over the next few months we will continue to phase in evening and early morning access and this will reach most patients in the greater Peterborough area by the end of October.” A spokesperson for the CQC said that the delay in extending opening hours in Peterborough was not because the CQC’s procedures had taken longer than they should have done.
Retiring consultants pose problem for NHS Scotland: Scotland’s NHS is facing a “mini retirement boom” as more than 250 consultants are due to reach retirement age in the next five years, new figures have shown, The Scotsman reports. Vacancies among key senior staff are already at record levels, with nearly 450 unfilled posts in hospitals this year. Tory health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: “The vacancy situation among consultants in Scotland’s hospitals is bad enough without a mini retirement boom coming down the tracks. Ministers must explain as a matter of urgency how they intend not only to reduce the number of vacancies, but also replace those for whom retirement is imminent.” Nursing vacancies are also at a new high, with 2,256 vacancies currently, compared to just 579 in 2011. Scottish health secretary Shona Robison said: “In accordance with current legislation, we can no longer presume a retiral age as this is discriminatory. As a result, information relating to numbers of NHS consultants retiring in the next five years is not available. It should be noted that not all staff that reach the average retirement age will retire as there is no legal requirement for them to do so.”
CCGs ‘must consult’ on digital roadmaps: Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) must work closely with all local health providers to develop and deliver local digital roadmaps, NHS Providers and trust IT experts have argued, reported DigitalHealth.net . Siva Anandaciva, head of analysis at NHS Providers said: “Unlocking the benefits of a digitally mature health and social care system can only happen through greater engagement, alignment and collaboration between providers and commissioners.” Dr Tony Smith, clinical lead for IT and clinical safety officer at Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said he could understand why CCGs had been appointed to lead on the roadmaps. However, he added: “One concern I have is that, without a coordinated approach, patients with several co-morbidities, managed by a few different providers, may need to negotiate multiple portals to access various bits of their information – without any source of a common truth. We have to avoid a proliferation of disparate patient portals,” Smith said. Andy Kinnear, director of informatics and business intelligence at South West CSU, said that CCGs will have support from CSUs, NHS provider organisations and local authorities. “CCGs will not be tackling this challenge on their own.”
Leeds leads the way on shared records: The Leeds Care Record is live in all but one of the region’s GP practices, as well as in acute, mental health and community providers, reported DigitalHealth.net. The integrated care initiative has 700 regular users, who can access an individual’s health and social care details held on a secure computer system at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. It is built upon and powered by the Leeds Teaching Hospitals’ ppm+ platform and includes details such as medications, allergies, test results and information related to referrals, clinic letters and discharges. Dr Tony Shannon, director of Leeds Care Record, said: “By the end of this calendar year we will have rolled out to majority of city and we will have information coming in from the majority of the players from different parts of NHS and social care in Leeds.” There are also plans to make it easier to use, such as allowing users to log in using a smart card and giving GPs the ability to log in directly from their clinical system. Shannon is also keen for other areas of the NHS to learn from the work done to create the Leeds Care Record. This is being done through Ripple, a programme set up by the Leeds partners and led by Leeds City Council to support open collaboration in NHS IT.
HSCIC chief promises commissioners easier data access: Andy Williams, the chief executive of the Health and Social Care Information Centre has said commissioners will be better able to obtain and use patient data from 2017, reported Health Service Journal (HSJ, subscription required). He said the informatics and data body was working with NHS England to ensure that flows of anonymised and pseudonymised data would be “rationalised” so that information could be more quickly used by commissioners. It is also developing a set of technology standards to enable software platforms used by social care providers to be better integrated with those used in healthcare. Williams said: “We are working in conjunction with NHS England as part of the data agenda on a new way of delivering data for commissioning. The first part of that is going to be live in 2017. I think we are in an OK place when it comes to standards and interoperability but what the Five Year Forward View and the new models of care bring to the forefront is that we need to be much better.”
NHS awaits new medical-grade ruggedized iPad case to support infection control:
Healthcare product innovator, FutureNova, is set to launch a new rugged medical grade iPad case to help protect clinicians and patients from the risk of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs), as adoption of mobile technology increases within the NHS, reported eHealthNews.eu. The FlipPad™, made for the iPad Air and iPad Air 2, has been designed to be easily cleaned with standard infection control sprays, and designed to be resistant to shock and accidental spillages, to ensure innovative mobile technology can be used safely. It also enables clinicians to use standard surgical gloves to operate an iPad touchscreen and features a new antimicrobial glass that resists bacterial growth. Mike Casey, CEO of FutureNova said: “As the NHS introduces more technology into clinical settings to improve care, there is a real risk for infections to be passed between patients, staff and visitors. With this in mind, we created the FlipPad where every aspect of the product has been chosen to ensure it can be easily and safely cleaned with standard infection control sprays to reach the highest hygiene standards. Our team is focused on innovating quality products to support the NHS with patient safety initiatives.”
Healthcare finance expert joins NHS Shared Business Services: Leading business support specialist NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has appointed Stephen Sutcliffe as director of finance and accounting, reported eHealthNews.eu. As a former NHS director of finance, with a wealth of experience in both the NHS provider and commissioning sectors, he will head up the provision of the organisation’s finance and accounting service to NHS client organisations. Commenting on his appointment, Stephen Sutcliffe said: “Improving the way the NHS transacts and uses data to intelligently commission and provide services is highly important at a time when billions of pounds of efficiency savings are needed to ensure the sustainability of the health service. I look forward to working with NHS SBS customers and developing finance and accounting services to help meet the pressing needs of the NHS.” Sutcliffe brings with him over 20 years’ experience in the healthcare finance sector, having held accountancy roles with several major trusts, as well as senior positions at Oldham PCT, Greater Manchester Commissioning Support Unit and Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group. David Morris, NHS SBS managing director, said: “With such a significant background in the healthcare finance world, Stephen will be a great asset to our organisation as we look at how we can achieve greater financial stability and efficiency for our clients.”
Government to impose new contract on junior doctors: The Department of Health (DH) has confirmed that junior doctors will be forced to work under new terms and conditions from August next year, reported Health Service Journal (HSJ, subscription required). It follows a final decision today by members of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee not to re-enter contract negotiations with NHS Employers. A DH spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the BMA junior doctors committee has let down its members and decided against re-entering negotiations, especially in light of the consultants’ agreement to negotiate”. The junior doctors committee said the proposals were unsafe for patients and unfair to doctors. It highlighted plans to extend routine working hours from 60 hours a week to 90 hours a week and remove the current pay banding system. Dr Andrew Collier, co-chair of the BMA junior doctors committee said: “The BMA wants to deliver a contract that protects patient safety and is fair to both junior doctors and the health service as a whole. However we can only do this if the UK government and others are prepared to work collaboratively in a genuine negotiation.”
Suite of publications set to bring community services to the forefront of NHS care: NHS Providers has launched a publication designed to “recognise and expand” the role of NHS community health services, National Health Executive reported. The ‘Community Health Services – A Way of Life’ publication, including infographics and a supporting blog, aims to drive patient care back into home, clinic and pharmacy settings while only focusing high-risk and specialist intervention in hospitals. It draws on the need to better define and recognise the role of NHS community health services by reinforcing its supply of trained and skilled professionals and refocusing the healthcare strategy on public health and patient-centred care. Dame Gill Morgan, chair of NHS Providers, emphasised the importance of the high-quality and complex care provided by hospitals, but stressed that services delivered in people’s homes and communities are “equally important, but unsung”. The publication draws on different case studies around the country to assess multispecialty providers that are developing beneficial community-based services within budget.
Awards
For the second year running, Highland Marketing is sponsoring the EHI Awards social media category, which will recognise the winner for its “best use of social media to deliver a health campaign”. Good luck to all the finalists, we look forward to presenting the winner with their award.
Opinion
This Spending Review needs honesty and realism, not panic and denial
The government must provide adequate funding for both the NHS and social care throughout this parliament, as well as in the current year, or be honest with the public about the inevitable fall in standards of patient care, writes The King’s Fund chief executive Chris Ham in a blog this week.
Ham, who describes a mood of panic in the Department of Health and denial in the Treasury, says the NHS will need an emergency injection of funding this year to deal with forecast deficits, perhaps amounting to £1bn.
“The Spending Review would provide an opportunity to announce this funding, but it is more likely that the government will seek to ride out the storm in the hope that controls on the agency staff and management consultants and pressure to increase productivity will bring spending back in line with available funding.
“If more funding is not made available, the key turning point will be the arrival of the next NHS ‘crisis’, most likely during the winter when many hospitals run out of money and all other budgets have been raided to the point of exhaustion.
“With NHS hospitals unable to go bankrupt and having to find ways of paying staff and creditors to maintain continuity of service to patients, the Treasury will be forced to intervene or accept a rapid and serious decline in performance. This will pose a personal challenge for Jeremy Hunt, who has led the drive to improve patient safety and quality of care over the past three years. At that point the Prime Minister will have to show his true colours.”
The revolving door of NHS leadership must stop spinning
The list of excellent chief executives who have been lost to the health service is growing and now is the time to reverse that trend by providing explicit support to prevent this talent drain, writes Rob Webster, chief executive of the NHS Confederation.
“As chief executives, our personal accountability is clear – the safety of every patient and the value of every penny spent in the NHS. It’s a heavy burden that is carried gladly by everyone in the job. Yet in a toxic environment, the gravitational force of the media, the regulators and the politics can make the burden become too heavy, even for superwoman (or man) to carry.
“We need a model that allows us to treat rising numbers of patients with chronic conditions and an older population. This should take up a majority of board and chief executive time, backed by clinical leadership and patient engagement.
“We need to get behind one united vision. It needs to be marked by integrated out of hospital services that genuinely meet the needs of people in the 21st Century. Where our social, mental and physical health needs are met in communities at scale. One where hospitals work as part of a broader system to deliver specialist care, balanced across seven days. And where the finances and delivery of care work together to improve patient outcomes.
“It should not be forgotten that in spite of pressures, we have the opportunity to truly transform care. This will mean high volume and explicit support for NHS chief executives. We cannot afford to lose them.”
How the government will fund a seven-day NHS remains a mystery
Chasing the politically-driven pipe dream of a seven-day NHS is impossible when existing services are under unbearable strain, writes British Medical Association (BMA) deputy chairman Dr Kailash Chand.
“GP services are already struggling badly just to provide a weekday service. There are physically not the GPs or the funding to support practices who might be under pressure to open for an extra two days while maintaining their regular opening hours. And this is the central problem. Politicians have given no practical explanation of how they are going to fund this extra care. I have heard one health leader suggest that we would need thousands of extra GPs and millions of extra pounds to make seven-day opening work.
“The prime minister’s £150m Challenge Fund is a mere drop in the ocean. Given that it takes 10 years to train a GP, how are we going to make this happen soon? And if we were to do that, will the balance of GP cover change with fewer GPs being available during regular hours?
“If out-of-hours and weekend work proves more lucrative, some will surely prefer to earn more, doing fewer hours than providing a service during usual surgery hours.
“Without explaining and in absence of an honest dialogue with the profession, how do you, prime minister, intend to deliver a seven-day NHS? This politically driven promise risks damaging the existing NHS services on which we all rely. We need a long-term, sustainable plan that fixes the problems overwhelming the weekday service before we consider opening at the weekend.”
Blog
In this week’s blog Highland Marketing’s Founder and CEO, Mark Venables, writes about the potential reasons behind Tim Kelsey’s departure from NHS England.
