News in brief
- Croydon NHS asks for £11.4m bail out: NHS Croydon, which was bailed out of a £27.2m blackhole has asked for a further £11.4m to balance the books reports the Croydon Guardian. The trust has submitted a business case for another multimillion pound bailout, from NHS London from the trust’s reserve fund just a month after an independent report blamed widespread mismanagement for a £22.4m overspend during 2010/11. A review of the trust’s finances for the coming year has discovered contracts signed during the 2010/11 overspend must be honoured, causing a further £11.4m shortfall.
- NHS trust saves £7m on national patient records costs: The Guardian has reported how a “direct tender” has enabled Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust to purchase a patient records system at a cost more than £7m below the price paid by the Department of Health (DH) under NPfIt . The trust paid £1.8m to supplier CSE Healthcare Systems for the RiO patient records system. It signed the contract on 2nd July for six years, with a possible two year extension. Campaign4Change has reported that BT’s contract with the DH under NPfIT cost £224.3m for 25 deployments of the same system, or about £9m each. The DH was asked to comment about huge difference in price, but declined to do so.
- Warrington looks to replace Meditech PAS: According to a tender document Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is overhauling its IT estate in an £11m project that includes replacing its patient administration system and the procurement of a clinical portal. The trust is looking to replace the Meditech PAS that it has had since 1997 with a “broadly comparable” patient management system. Invitations will be dispatched to selected candidates to tender next week.
- National IT transfer plans unveiled: Staff working for NHS Connecting for Health, its Strategic Health Authority delivery arms, and the Health and Social Care Information Centre face a long period of disruption as a ‘new’ HSCIC is formed. On the 1st April next year all CfH, SHA informatics delivery and HSCIC staff (with a few exceptions) will be transferred to the new HSCIC, which will be set up as an executive non-departmental body. An ‘informatics functions transfer document’ sent to staff last week also said that SHA staff may have to transfer to CfH before they can be transferred on again.
- ‘Voting booths’ in A&E to measure patient experience: HSJ (subscription required) has revealed that hospitals may have to install voting booths in inpatient wards and A&E to measure patient experience. From April 2013 trusts will be contractually obliged to ask inpatients and A&E attendees who are not admitted whether they would recommend the hospital to their friends and family. This will result in each hospital receiving a “net promoter score”. The DH has issued a draft guidance for voting kiosks or “hand-held devices” to allow patients to rate their hospital stay.
- Local area team budgets dwarf CCG funds: Several of the NHS Commissioning Board’s local arms will have enormous budgets – dwarfing those of most clinical commissioning groups – HSJ (subscription required) estimates show. Out of 25 local area teams 10 will commission specialised services for their whole region. The commissioning board confirmed to HSJ which 10 groups would be in charge of specialised services for their region. Click here to view the table.
- Great Ormond Street Hospital plans £35m construction project: Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity is seeking architects/engineers to design its proposed Centre for Children’s Rare Disease Research, reports The Construction Index. The plan is to demolish an existing building at 20 Guilford Street in London, next to Great Ormond Street Hospital and replace it with a new ‘cutting edge state-of-the-art’ research centre with laboratories and offices. Completion is targeted for April 2018.
- Survey finds 91% of people have not heard of telehealth: A survey carried out by YouGov has revealed 91% of UK adults have never heard of telehealth or telecare – despite the Department of Health’s Three Million Lives campaign (subscription required) to promote it. The survey of 2,054 adults was carried out during March and also found only 5% knew what telehealth was. Patricia Wilkie, president, National Association for Patient Participation, which is part of the Telehealth Forum said: “Our research shows that we still have some way to go in letting people know what telehealth and telecare are, and how these new technologies can improve their lives.”
- Legacy for anti-doping centre: An anti-doping facility being used to test samples during the Olympic and Paralympic Games is to be turned into a medical research unit. The MRC-NIHR Phenome Centre will look for new molecular ‘biomarkers’ for disease by analysing samples from patients and volunteers. The centre in Harlow, Essex will be funded over five years by an investment of £5million each from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). The unit is currently testing urine and blood samples from athletes, looking for more than 240 prohibited substances. Every Olympic medallist and a random selection of other competitors will be tested.
- Eight CCGs apply to delay NHS 111: The government had set a deadline for commissioners to have the urgent care telephone service rolled out across England by April 2013. But in June it announced that clinical commissioning groups could apply for an extension of up to six months. Eight CCGs have applied for an extension to the roll-out deadline for NHS 111, reports EHI. The tight roll-out deadline had been criticised by a number of organisations worried that the helpline is increasing the burden on ambulance services, A&E departments and GPs, while leaving the public with less advice than was delivered through NHS Direct.
- Launch of consultation to encourage more joined up working in the health service: Proposals for the duties of health and wellbeing boards were published this week by The Department of Health. Health and wellbeing boards will be made up of clinical commissioning groups, local authorities, patient representatives, public health, and children’s and adult social care leaders in each local authority area to shape local health and care services, decide how they will be commissioned and support joined-up working. Health Minister Anne Milton said: “The Health and Social Care Act encourages much more integration between health and care services. Health and wellbeing boards are vital to that integration.”
- NHS Scotland rolls out shared services for 22 boards: NHS Scotland has started the roll out of a single shared services platform for finance across its 22 health boards. The first wave of seven health boards are now on the single, multi-company Advanced Business Solutions financial management system with integrated document management from Version One and business intelligence from SAP BusinessObjects, reports Computer Weekly. Don Millard, national finance systems lead for the programme said: “The move would save millions per year, with a return on investment expected to happen quickly.”
Opinion
Danny Boyle’s Olympics ceremony reminded politicians: undermine the NHS at your peril
Of course, there was bound to be lots of blogging around the Olympics this week and in particular the role that the NHS played in the opening ceremony. In GPonline’s blog, Nick Bostock writes on how the opening ceremony demonstrates how anyone trying to mess with the NHS should do so at their peril. In his blog he writes:
“So what better way to demonstrate to NHS staff that even if politicians don’t always seem to value them, the public do? It sent a clear message to politicians of all parties too – undermine this building block of our national identity at your peril.
He also says that the Olympics will have more than just a legacy in helping to improve participation in sport in the UK.
Talk about the Olympic legacy has centred on whether it would inspire a generation of children to take up sport, and whether it would provide lasting facilities for sport. But I don’t think it is beyond the realms of possibility that including the NHS in that opening ceremony could go some way to inspiring the next generation of NHS staff. And at a time when morale in the service isn’t great, that may prove a priceless achievement.”
‘The NHS is a marvelous social experiment nowhere near the finish line’
In an Olympic themed opinion from US blogger, Paul Levy, a former Boston Hospital CEO, he marvels over the NHS tribute in the London 2012 opening ceremony. But he laughs at the ignorance of fellow American, Los Angeles Times sports writer Diane Pucin who tweeted:
“For the life of me, though, am still baffled by NHS tribute at opening ceremonies. Like a tribute to United Health Care or something in US.” Thankfully, she was quickly corrected by @swaldman: “Well, maybe, if United Health Care were government-run and a source of national pride.” And another by @MaxwellLeslie: “The NHS is one of Britain’s greatest & most loved Institutions, reinforcing the ignorant American stereotype very well with that tweet.”
While the US continues to battle with the politics of ‘ObamaCare’, Mr Levy concludes his opinion with this in mind:
“Both beloved and berated by the British citizenry, the NHS is a marvellous social experiment that is nowhere near the finish line. With a most dedicated and caring staff and bureaucratic beyond belief, both, it carries the torch forward. In the former colonies (the US), we take on the task in a different way, but we face the same issues. Indeed, as I have noted.
“After all, the countries are dealing with the same organisms, both biologically and politically. The two types of systems have a tendency to converge in many ways suggesting that — in all systems — a concerted focus on quality, safety, transparency, and process improvement would be well worthwhile.” Read the full opinion.
The next 50 years: is the NHS financially sustainable?
At a recent King’s Fund seminar Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Paul Johnson director, Institute of Fiscal Studies and John Appleby chief economist at The King’s Fund gave their insights on what the future of health care spending might look like.
The seminar was given against a backdrop of the NHS facing a virtual freeze in its spending to 2014/15, and prospects for little or no real funding increases for some years. Plus the publication of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) 2012 Fiscal Sustainability report provided a timely basis for examining and debating possible trajectories of spending in the future and the implications for NHS policy.
Highland Marketing blog
This week Mark Venables says it is ‘Time to spread the good news about the NHS’. He goes on to explore where the responsibility lies in doing this and some of the communication channels available that can help.
