Current wave of strike action ends  More than a million NHS staff will receive a 5% pay rise and one-off payment of at least £1,655 after the NHS Staff Council voted to accept the government’s latest offer. The decision brings the current wave of strike action by nurses, ambulance staff, and support staff to an end. However, the Royal College of Nursing has indicated that it could run another strike ballot. Junior doctors are also unaffected by the deal, which applies to staff on Agenda for Change pay scales (BBC News). Consultants have also indicated they are up for strike action if the government doesn’t address pay, pension and progression issues (BMA website).

Tim Ferris to leave NHS England  Tim Ferris, the head of the NHS England transformation directorate, which absorbed NHSX and NHS Digital, is to leave his job this summer. Ferris joined the NHS from the Massachusetts General Physicians Organisation in Boston. It spent $1.2 billion on the Epic EPR in 2016, and Ferris was probably best known for the frontline digitisation programme, which appeared to favour Epic and other US providers. However, he also Founded the Centre for Population Health, which takes a data-driven approach to health improvement, and NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard chose to praise his work on innovation, cancer detection, and the NHS App in his departure announcement (Health Service Journal).   Ferris’ position had looked increasingly uncertain as NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care announced new bodies to do transformation and IT. Two weeks ago, NHS England said it was setting up a National Improvement Board to work on “a small number of shared national priorities” (HSJ). And last week, the DHSC said it would set up an NHSX-like Digital Policy Unit with NHS England to tackle issues like cyber security, data policy, and AI (HSJ). Dr Vin Diwakar, medical director for secondary care and transformation, will take on Ferris’ job as an interim appointment. NHS England also has an interim CIO and CCIO (digitalhealth.net).

Sir David Sloman also leaves as financial screws tighten   Ferris is not the only big-name departure from NHS England. Chief operating officer Sir David Sloman is retiring. His role will be taken by Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and the former chief executive of NHS Improvement. Although Mackey will also lead the COO directorate on an interim basis, his appointment may indicate NHS England wants more “grip” on NHS finances and targets. HSJ has reported that a quarter of trusts have yet to set an “acceptable” budget for 2023-4. Integrated care systems are required to break even – something many believe is impossible, even with huge cost improvement plans.

Health IT news: about better connected ambulances, real-time HSMR reporting, at home gestational diabetes testing, and a pre-op app for NHS Fife delivered by Buddy Healthcare  The NHS Ambulance Radio Programme has announced that Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust has gone live with the mobile data and vehicle solution that is due to be rolled out nationally. The solution includes Sat Nav and better access to England’s emergency services networks (digitalhealth.net). The Health Informatics Service has developed a real-time monitoring of the Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio for its host, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. The solution pulls data from the trust’s Oracle (Cerner) Millennium EPR and other systems into an open-source reporting tool, so the trust doesn’t have to wait for the three-monthly publication of HSMR data (Health Tech World).   University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust has said it extending a pilot of home-testing for pregnant women. The trust is working with Digostics on a glucose test for gestational diabetes (Health Tech Newspaper). NHS Fife has launched a mobile app for patients due to undergo orthopaedic surgical procedures. The Elsie pre-op app from Buddy Healthcare enables patients to complete pre-operative assessments and communicate with the surgical team, reducing the need for multiple hospital visits, making it more likely that surgery will go ahead, and enabling surgical teams to fill theatre slots at short notice (Dumfermline Press).