NHS Providers boss says nurses’ strike had ‘significant impact’ as senior Tories urge government to negotiate
Planned strikes next week will be “very challenging” for the health service, hospital bosses have warned, after they conceded that Thursday’s nurses strikes had had a “significant impact”.
The comments from NHS Providers came amid mounting pressure on the government from senior backbenchers and usually supportive newspapers to try to resolve the dispute.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing leader criticises ‘belligerence’ in meeting with Steve Barclay at which ministers refused to discuss pay
Nurses’ strikes will go ahead this week after a meeting between the union and the health secretary ended in deadlock, with the Royal College of Nursing condemning ministers’ “belligerence” for refusing to discuss pay.
Six hundred military personnel from all three armed forces will start training to drive ambulances to cover for striking NHS workers across the UK later this month. A further 150 are being readied to act as logistical support, defence sources said, with training for both groups to start “shortly”.
Continue reading...Warning comes as health official says earlier start to cases in UK could be knock-on effect of pandemic
Downing Street has told parents to be on the lookout for signs of strep A infection after reports a primary-school pupil has become the eighth child to die in a matter of weeks.
On Monday, Alison Syred-Paul, headteacher at Morelands primary in Waterlooville, Hampshire, said: “Very tragically, we have learned of the death in recent days of a child who attended our school, who was also diagnosed with an invasive Group A streptococcal (iGAS) infection.”
Continue reading...Ex-minister claims Tory peer intimated unnamed firm she was helping was being treated unfairly
The Conservative peer Michelle Mone made “extraordinarily aggressive” lobbying efforts on behalf of a company bidding to supply Covid tests during the pandemic, Matt Hancock has claimed in a serialisation of his diaries.
The former health secretary claimed that Lady Mone made “wild accusations” about the procurement process, intimating that the company she was helping, which is not named, was suffering unfairly.
Continue reading...Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts
Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.
The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.
Continue reading...Those from deprived backgrounds are particularly at risk of dying from cancer of the lungs, liver, bladder and oesophagus
Poorer women in Britain have some of the highest death rates from cancer in Europe, an in-depth new World Health Organization study has found.
They are much more likely to die from the disease compared with better-off women in the UK and women in poverty in many other European countries.
Continue reading...Exclusive: More than 4,000 European medics have chosen not to work in NHS since Britain left EU, data reveals
Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, research reveals.
The disclosure comes as growing numbers of medics quit in disillusionment at their relentlessly busy working lives in the increasingly overstretched health service. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians.
Continue reading...Capital budget of £12bn a year to shrink to £11.7bn, putting Tories’ claim 40 hospitals in England will be built or renovated in doubt
Plans by the government to construct and renovate 40 hospitals in England could be delayed because of new analysis suggesting the health and social care department’s capital spending budget faces a real-terms cut of £700m next year, according to the Liberal Democrats.
With some hospitals said to be in dire need of repair, the health secretary twice refused to say on Sunday that the NHS was functioning properly and instead admitted it was under “severe pressure”.
Continue reading...Women in UK three times more likely to die around the time of pregnancy than those in Norway
Mothers in the UK are three times more likely to die around the time of pregnancy compared with those in Norway, according to an international analysis of data.
Although maternal mortality is at historic lows in high-income countries, it remains an important indicator of quality of care, health system performance and, more specifically, maternal care. The comparison of maternal mortality rates in eight European countries was published in the BMJ.
Continue reading...Scheme starting this month is aimed at improving Britain’s poor record on early diagnosis
All GPs in England will be able to refer suspected cancer patients for tests without them first having to see a specialist under an NHS initiative designed to speed up diagnosis.
The scheme, which starts this month, will let family doctors send patients with potential symptoms straight to have a scan, X-ray or other diagnostic test.
Continue reading...‘Complexity and uncertainty’ ahead as NHS struggles to deliver standard of care patients deserve, says Amanda Pritchard
The NHS in England is facing even tougher challenges now than when Covid-19 struck, the service’s boss has said.
The many problems confronting the health service meant it was harder now for it to do its job, and it would become even more difficult, said Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UK’s most senior female bishop calls for long-awaited white paper promising ‘bold action’
The most senior female bishop in the country has launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of “burying its head in the sand” over “shocking” and “rampant” health inequalities.
Dame Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, spoke out after the Guardian reported that Thérèse Coffey was dropping the government’s long-promised white paper on health disparities.
Continue reading...Health and social care secretary’s decision to grant contracts to UK firm Abingdon Health was the subject of litigation
A legal challenge to the government’s award of multimillion-pound contracts for lateral flow tests that later failed to gain regulatory approval has been rejected by the high court.
The health and social care secretary’s decision to grant three contracts to UK firm Abingdon Health was the subject of litigation by campaigning organisation Good Law Project (GLP), which has brought several cases challenging the way contracts were awarded during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Thérèse Coffey announces measure aimed at freeing up beds in hospitals in England before winter pressures
Ministers are setting up a £500m emergency fund to get thousands of medically fit patients out of hospital as soon as possible in an attempt to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed this winter.
Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary, unveiled the move in the Commons on Thursday as part of her plans to tackle the growing crisis in the health service, especially patients’ long delays for care.
Continue reading...Health department had denied Covid testing priority lane but new disclosure lists firms including lab behind false negatives
The government has admitted that 50 firms were put in a “priority” lane for securing test and trace contracts worth billions, including Immensa, the company involved in a scandal over 43,000 false negative results.
The UK Health and Security Agency revealed the names of the 50 companies to the Good Law Project, the campaigning organisation that successfully challenged the government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts in the courts.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Analysis of 126,000 cases over a decade shows ‘deeply worrying’ racial disparities in NHS wait times
Black and Asian people in England have to wait longer for a cancer diagnosis than white people, with some forced to wait an extra six weeks, according to a “disturbing” analysis of NHS waiting times.
A damning review of the world’s largest primary care database by the University of Exeter and the Guardian discovered minority ethnic patients wait longer than white patients in six of seven cancers studied. Race and health leaders have called the results “deeply concerning” and “absolutely unacceptable”.
Continue reading...Tory leadership hopeful says he was prevented from raising negative effects of Covid measures
Rishi Sunak has been accused of trying to “rewrite history” after he claimed the harms of lockdown were ignored, meaning curbs on people’s freedoms may have gone on too long and been overly strict.
The Conservative leadership hopeful was criticised for his account of the discussions at the heart of government when he was chancellor amid frantic attempts to curb the spread of the virus and avoid the NHS becoming overwhelmed.
Continue reading...TUC calls on Department for Work and Pensions to make move to help workers access key benefits
Ministers should urgently classify Covid-19 as an occupational disease to prompt employers to reduce the risk of exposure and help workers access key benefits, the TUC has said.
The UK is out of step with other major countries that have recognised Covid as a disease that people can get in the course of their work, especially in certain sectors, it says.
Continue reading...Exclusive: doctors will use pay row to expose ‘desperate state’ of NHS after years of government neglect, Prof Philip Banfield warned
A doctor’s strike is “inevitable” and will expose how dangerously threadbare the Conservatives have left the health service, the profession’s new leader has said.
In his first interview since taking over as the British Medical Association’s chair of council, Prof Philip Banfield warned ministers that doctors will take the fight to them by using a pay dispute to tell the public patients are dying as a direct result of government neglect of the NHS.
Continue reading...Trusts reveal only five wholly new hospitals planned, as Labour says the scheme ‘exists only in PM’s imagination’
The government’s official spending watchdog is to launch an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s claim that 40 new hospitals will be built by 2030, as concerns grow in Whitehall that the pledge is unaffordable and has been greatly oversold to the public.
In a move that could prove hugely embarrassing for the prime minister, the independent National Audit Office (NAO) has decided to conduct a “value for money review” into the entire scheme, which was a cornerstone of the Conservative party’s 2019 general election manifesto.
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