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NHS ‘unsafe and unsustainable’ says health service chief for London

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-unsafe-and-unsustainable-says-health-service-chief-for-london-8877263.html

Problems revealed by the medical director for the NHS in the capital are a symptom of country-wide issues, he says

Image of Andy Mitchell, NHS Medical Director London

The medical director of the NHS for the capital has warned that services are at “breaking point” and that patients are unsafe.

Dr Andy Mitchell has said that London’s health system is “unsustainable” the day before NHS England will publish a report stating that it can no longer afford to staff all of its hospitals at safe levels.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Dr Mitchell stated that the public must face up to the reality that hospitals are overstretched and that patients receive an inadequate service.

“They don’t understand how watered down these services are. What we cannot do is carry on with the idea that all hospitals provide a whole range of services. That is completely unsustainable and would become, frankly, unsafe, and is becoming unsafe in many areas.

“The public isn’t really sufficiently aware, that many places don’t meet acceptable standards of care. The expectation is that, as they walk into hospital, they get high-quality service, and in fact, they don’t in many places,” he said.

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Fury at Bully Hunt’s NHS Pay Rise Snub

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http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-7b46-Fury-at-bully-Hunts-NHS-pay-rise-snub#.UlT7oS1XnWd

Health Secretary keen to axe 1 per cent increase

Image of Jeremy Hunt and David CameronUnions laid into Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday for wanting to ditch a miserly 1 per cent pay increase for hard-working NHS staff.

The GMB accused him of “berating and bullying staff” and said that his behaviour “will not be tolerated,” warning that industrial action was possible.

Unite called for the introduction of the living wage to benefit the NHS’s 17,000 lowest-paid workers.

Mr Hunt caused a huge furore when he said that the independent NHS pay review body should not implement a one per cent increase for 1.3 million NHS staff, or maintain performance-related increments.

Pointing out that the NHS pay review body was independent, GMB’s national NHS officer Rehana Azam said: “You only have to spend time with a paramedic, nurse, theatre porter or any other frontline NHS worker to see their number one priority is to deliver quality care and the best outcomes to patients they care for.”

“Why then does Jeremy Hunt want to berate and bully staff while they are trying to do a good job often under difficult circumstances?”

“This is just wrong and will not be tolerated.”

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Number of NHS A&E units failing to meet targets triples in a year

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/04/nhs-a-and-e-units-targets

Thirty-nine departments failed to see 95% of patients within four hours in England, up from 14 units for same period in 2012

Accident and emergency
Accident and emergency

 

 

The number of A&E units failing to meet the government’s four-hour target has almost trebled in a year.

A total of 39 departments failed to meet the target of seeing 95% of patients within four hours between July and September, according to NHS England data. This compares with 14 units during the same period last year.

The target covers all A&E types, including minor injury units and walk-in centres, and the number discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours of arrival.

The NHS as a whole across England is still hitting the target, with 96% of all patients seen within the time between July and September. But this is only because some units perform way above the target, with some consistently hitting 100%.

In August, David Cameron announced £500m of extra funding over the next two years to support A&E.

The cash is intended to help units through the winter, cutting delays and reducing the number of admissions.

The shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, said: “David Cameron’s ill-judged re-organisation has placed the NHS in the danger zone. The government cannot continue to ignore the warnings. Until ministers face up to the fundamental causes – the collapse of social care and frontline job losses – the NHS will continue to struggle.

“This is further proof you can’t trust David Cameron with the NHS. We can’t have another year in the NHS like the last one – he needs to urgently get a grip.”

 

Continue ReadingNumber of NHS A&E units failing to meet targets triples in a year

NHS faces unexpected £500m cuts, say hospitals

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Hospital trusts say frontline services are threatened by cuts on top of anticipated £1bn fall in funding

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The NHS faces unexpected cuts of £500m that threaten frontline services, according to a body that represents hospital trusts.

Despite the government’s pledge to protect frontline services with real-terms increases in funding, Monitor, the NHS watchdog, has proposed that in 2014-15 hospitals should be paid 4% less for operations than they were the previous year.

While hospitals were braced for a cut of about £1bn in funding, the Foundation Trust Network, which represents all 160 hospital trusts in England, calculates that Monitor is now asking for another £500m in savings – roughly £3m from each trust.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of the Foundation Trust Network, said cuts to frontline services would be deeper than expected and questioned whether the NHS could invest in much needed changes to the way hospital services work, recommended by the Francis report into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust.

He warned that hospitals were facing a “quadruple whammy” of “implementing the Francis report’s recommendations on quality such as improving staff-to-patient ratios, putting seven-day working in place, coping with increasing demand and investing in much needed change”.

“The level of efficiency savings the NHS has delivered over the last three years is unprecedented, but this level of performance cannot be sustained year on year till 2021. We need a reality check here – in the end you get what you pay for, and trusts can’t perform miracles out of thin air.”

Officials at Monitor were unrepentant, saying the forcing of hospitals to charge less for operations would free more money for clinical commissioning groups – clumps of GPs who purchase care on behalf of patients – to spend on the public.

However, Labour said it was another example of how the coalition’s reforms were silently squeezing the NHS.

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Government forcing us to open NHS to competition, say commissioners

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The government promised parliament that NHS competition would not be compulsory under their new laws. New evidence emerges today that these promises were false.

Local health bosses are saying they are legally obliged to put NHS services out to competition, despite repeated government promises to the contrary, it emerged today.

A survey in today’s Pulse magazine revealed that since April, Clinical Commissioning Groups have put 63% of contracts to provide NHS services out to tender, with a further 9% using the slightly different ‘Any Qualified Provider’ route. The contracts that have been opened up to private healthcare companies to take over include every aspect of NHS services and total billions of pounds.

And according to Pulse:

“When asked whether they had awarded contracts without putting it out to competition, many Clinical Commissioning Groups – including Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – answered: ‘This would be contrary to the section 75 regulations.’”

The revelation will re-open controversy about broken government promises on NHS privatisation.

The Section 75 regulations were made under the Health & Social Care Act in April this year. They appeared to force competition on the NHS in contravention of ministerial promises made during the stormy passage of the Act itself. At a critical juncture then health secretary Andrew Lansley wrote to the new local health bosses (Clinical Commissioning Groups) telling them that,

“I know many of you have read that you will be forced to fragment services, or put them out to tender. This is absolutely not the case. It is a fundamental principle of the Bill that you as commissioners, not the Secretary of State and not regulators – should decide when and how competition should be used to serve your patients interests.”

And he told the House of Commons,”There is absolutely nothing in the Bill that promotes or permits the transfer of NHS activities to the private sector”

Days later Tory health minister Earl Howe promised the Lords “Clinicians will be free to commission services in the way they consider best. We intend to make it clear that commissioners will have a full range of options and that they will be under no legal obligation to create new markets, particularly where competition would not be effective in driving high standards and value for patients. As I have already explained, this will be made absolutely clear through secondary legislation and supporting guidance as a result of the Bill.”

However when this secondary legislation emerged in February this year – the Section 75 regulations – it appeared to break these promises and give local health commissioners no choice but to put NHS services out to competition, as first highlighted on OurNHS openDemocracy and by Keep Our NHS Public.

A storm of protest errupted. Over 1000 health professionals wrote to the Telegraph urging for the regulations to be scrapped. Both the unions and the Royal Colleges – even those who had been muted in their opposition to the Act itself – and were up in arms at what the Association of Royal Colleges called ‘privatisation by stealth’. Over 300,000 38 Degrees members signed a petition for them to be dropped. Polly Toynbee called for the Lib Dems not to stand for any more lies on the NHS and many Lib Dem activists raised concerns.

Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb told parliament “We are looking at this extremely seriously. Clear assurances were given in the other place during the passage of this legislation and it is important they are complied with in the regulations.”

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