Andrew Lansley

Coalition cuts blamed for shortage of 20,000 NHS nurses

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coalitioncuts-blamedfor-shortageof-20000nhs-nurses-8933661.html

FOI requests reveal ‘hidden workforce crisis’ at odds with official statistics

Image reads Accident & Emergency, A & E

Freedom of Information requests submitted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to dozens of NHS hospitals in England have exposed a “hidden workforce crisis” that has been missed by government statistics.

While official figures say that just 3,859 full-time nurse, midwife and health visitor posts have been lost since the Coalition came to power in May 2010, the RCN said that thousands more nursing vacancies have been created because hospitals have not been replacing staff that have retired or moved on due to reduced budgets.

Staffing shortages have been highlighted in a number of reports into NHS care. Robert Francis drew attention to understaffed wards at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust in his report into one of the worst care scandals in the health service’s history.

Howard Catton, the RCN’s head of policy, said that Government figures had not been “fully reflecting the shortages [that nurses] are experiencing at ward level”.

The report came as Downing Street confirmed that the Prime Minister is personally overseeing the NHS’s response to what A&E doctors have warned could be “our worst winter yet”. Many trusts missed their A&E targets last winter and there are fears that amid rising demand and reduced resources, the system may struggle to cope with expected spikes in admissions.

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Thousands of patients wait 12 hours in A&E

New figures show 12,000 patients were left lying on trolleys for at least 12 hours in emergency departments last year

Around 12,000 patients spent at least 12 hours lying on trolleys after being admitted to A&E last year, according to new figures.

A further 250 people waited for treatment in casualty wards for 24 hours or more, a Freedom of Information request revealed.

One person was left for 71 hours and 34 minutes, nearly three days, at North West London trust, which runs Northwick Park and Central Middlesex A&E departments.

In another shocking case a patient waited 37 hours at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen A&E while a third was left for 33 hours at Ashford and St Peter’s in Chertsey, Surrey.

Health campaigners claimed the figures were more evidence of the growing crisis in hospitals’ emergency wards.

The figures came as the government received a warning that the closure of 50 out of 230 NHS walk-in centres in the last three years was putting extra strain on A&E units.

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

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Continue ReadingCoalition cuts blamed for shortage of 20,000 NHS nurses

Closure of 23% of NHS walk-in centres ‘will put more pressure on A&E’

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/11/nhs-walk-in-centres-quarter-closedNHS regulator

Monitor says closures of 53 popular clinics could leave vulnerable people unable to access GP care

NHS sign

Despite huge popularity, nearly a quarter of NHS walk-in clinics offering seven-day care and evening opening have closed in the past three years, according to research by Monitor, the health service regulator.

It said there was a danger that closures could leave some patients unable to access GP care, particularly those unable to register with a surgery, as well as low-income working families and high-risk socially excluded groups such as homeless people, refugees and drug addicts.

More than 230 centres offering family doctor services were set up in England in the decade to 2010 under a Labour government initiative to improve access to care for patients who found it hard to register with their local GP or were unable to get a speedy appointment at a time that suited them.

Ironically, some of the closures appear to be the result of the centres being too successful. NHS commissioning authorities that have closed walk-in centres told Monitor that the clinics triggered “unwarranted” demand among “worried well” patients for often minor conditions. Some said they had closed centres to make savings as they could “no longer afford the convenience that walk-in centres offer”.

The closures are widely spread around England including in London, Plymouth, Southampton, Bristol, York, Manchester, Blackpool and Colchester. Six so-called “commuter” walk-in centres based at major railway stations in Manchester, London, Leeds and Newcastle, have closed in recent years after for failing to attract enough patients.

Monitor’s research found nearly two-thirds of patients who attended walk-in centres were already registered with a GP. Of these, just over a fifth said they had contacted their GP practice beforehand but were unable to get an appointment. A further 24% said they did not even bother to contact their GP because they anticipated there would be no convenient appointments available.
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Continue ReadingClosure of 23% of NHS walk-in centres ‘will put more pressure on A&E’

‘Truly shocking’ that the private-school educated and affluent middle class still run Britain, says Sir John Major

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10439303/Truly-shocking-that-the-private-school-educated-and-affluent-middle-class-still-run-Britain-says-Sir-John-Major.html

The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

The dominance of a private-school educated elite and well-heeled middle class in the “upper echelons” of public life in Britain is “truly shocking”, Sir John Major has said.

The former Conservative Prime Minister said he was appalled that “every single sphere of British influence” in society is dominated by men and women who went to private school or who are from the “affluent middle class”

More than half of the Cabinet, including David Cameron, the Prime Minister, George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, are thought to have gone to private school [Isn’t that a fact? what’s this “though to have”? Isn’t it closer to all than half?] and are independently very wealthy.

In the speech to Tory party grassroots activists on Friday evening, Sir John – who went to a comprehensive in south London and left school with three O-Levels – said: “In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me from my background, I find that truly shocking.”

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Continue Reading‘Truly shocking’ that the private-school educated and affluent middle class still run Britain, says Sir John Major

Number of NHS ‘super managers’ earning up to £240,000 soars amid pay freeze fear

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/10/nhs-super-managers-428-nurse-pay

Figures undermine David Cameron’s claims that health service bureaucracy is being cut

NHS sign

The number of elite NHS “super-managers” being paid up to £240,000 a year to implement the government’s controversial health service reforms has soared to more than four times the level originally expected by ministers, the Observer can reveal.

The latest official figures – which show a total of 428 “very senior managers” (VSMs) working in the newly constituted NHS bureaucracy – undermine David Cameron’s repeated claims to be slashing management posts and costs at every level in the service.

The figures will also anger more than a million NHS employees at the other end of the pay scale, including nurses and non-medical staff, such as cleaners, who have been warned that their planned 1% increase for 2014 could be cancelled because there is not enough money to fund it.

In 2010, as the coalition embarked on its controversial reforms aimed at opening the service up to more private competition, ministers told the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) that by the time the changes were completed in April this year, there would be fewer than 100 very senior managers working in the top salary bracket of between £70,000 and £240,000 a year. But the Department of Health last night confirmed recent SSRB data which shows the number is now 428, including 211 super-managers at NHS England, the new body which oversees the budget and delivery of day-to-day services. The average pay of these managers is around £123,000 a year.

Pay review body documents also show that in May 2012, at the height of controversy over the changes, pioneered by the former health secretary, Andrew Lansley, there were 770 VSMs in post “during transition from old to new NHS structures”.

The figures do not include the 259 chief executives of NHS trusts whose pay is set by their own organisations’ remuneration committees and in some cases is more than £240,000 a year.

The revelations will pile more pressure on ministers after it emerged that some 2,200 NHS managers have been made redundant with large payoffs, only to be re-employed soon after.
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Continue ReadingNumber of NHS ‘super managers’ earning up to £240,000 soars amid pay freeze fear

Lib Dem MPs targeted by campaign group over lobbying bill

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/20/lobbying-bill-liberal-democrats-targeted-campaign-group-38-degrees

Image of a rally against the lobbying bill in London on 8 October.

With the controversial lobbying bill having moved from the Commons to the Lords this month MPs might have hoped they would now be spared the protests of those worried the new law will curb the campaigning ability of charities and voluntary groups.

One organisation has redoubled its efforts, however, organising a rush of public meetings with Liberal Democrat MPs to remind them, it says, that their traditionally grassroots-based party should know better than to back such a measure.

The group, 38 Degrees, has set up 11 public meetings over little more than a week with MPs, 10 of them with Lib Dems and one with the Tory Chloe Smith, to demand continued attention over what is officially called the transparency of lobbying, non-party campaigning and trade union administration bill. Concentrating the MPs’ minds still further is the fact that several of them have distinctly slim majorities, several hovering around 1,000 and in the case of Simon Wright in Norwich South, a mere 310.

All the MPs at some point either supported or abstained on votes for the bill, which seeks to impose financial limits on spending “for election purposes”. A number of charities and campaign groups have warned this could affect even non-party political activities despite a series of amendments, said David Babbs, the executive director of 38 Degrees.

“We want to give the MPs a strong reminder that the lobbying bill threatens very popular institutions like charities and community groups, things that are generally held in much higher regard than they are, and their constituents will take a keen interest in how they voted on this,” he said. “Secondly, we want to remind MPs about what’s good about grassroots community campaigning, which this bill threatens to constrain. Most MPs at some point thought this stuff was important.”

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Continue ReadingLib Dem MPs targeted by campaign group over lobbying bill