NHS England could have 12,500 extra doctors and nurses by 2028 under the service’s first long-term workforce plan
Thousands more doctors and nurses will be trained in England every year as part of a government push to plug the huge workforce gaps that plague almost all NHS services.
The number of places in medical schools will rise from 7,500 to 10,000 by 2028 and could reach 15,000 by 2031 as a result of the NHS’s first long-term workforce plan.
Continue reading...Government initiative, which it is hoped will cover 1 million people in first four years, is aimed at saving lives and reducing pressure on NHS
A digital NHS Health Check is to be rolled out across England from next spring, the government has announced, in an attempt to alleviate the pressure on GP surgeries.
The initiative will deliver 1m checks in the first four years, according to the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Continue reading...PM likely to be questioned during Nottingham visit on King’s Fund report that says NHS is ‘more a laggard than a leader’
Lord Bethell, the former health minister, has welcomed the announcement from the government today about targeted lung cancer screening. But he thinks the government should go further.
The review by Javed Khan, published last summer, recommended raising the age at which people can buy cigarettes “by one year every year until no one can buy a tobacco product in this country”. Many Tories strongly oppose measures like this on libertarian grounds, and the government has not adopted the plan.
Continue reading...Inquiry launched by Environment Agency into huge pile of medical aprons found in Calmore, Hampshire
The “dumping” of hundreds of thousands of pieces of unused personal protective equipment near a nature reserve on the edge of the New Forest has mystified and angered local people.
But the council has revealed the giant pile of boxes containing medical aprons in Calmore, Hampshire, will be recycled into plastic bags.
Continue reading...Chief executive Amanda Pritchard says that if early results are successful it will be rolled out more widely next year
A blood test which can detect 50 cancers before symptoms start to show could be offered to a million people in a pilot programme from next summer, according to the head of the NHS.
Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said the Galleri test has the potential to “transform cancer care forever”, according to reports.
Continue reading...Some hospitals record highest ever A&E attendance figures as heat, high pollen count and air pollution bring rise in demand
A&E units across the UK are experiencing a surge in patients seeking care as a direct result of the heatwave, which is leaving many people unwell with shortness of breath, heat exhaustion and sunburn.
The number of people suffering problems as a direct result of the sustained high temperatures in many parts of the country has resulted in some hospitals recording their highest A&E attendance figures.
Continue reading...GMC says cases were among 194 incidents of alleged violations of confidentiality between 2017 and 2022
Two-dozen doctors have been disciplined by the UK medical regulator in the last five years after accessing and using information from patients’ treatment records without good reason.
The General Medical Council (GMC) said it had struck off two of the 24 doctors it had sanctioned after finding that they had undertaken “inappropriate use” of medical records.
Continue reading...Exclusive: £3.2m plan aims to curb rise in people sleeping rough as councils cut homelessness budgets
The NHS will deploy street mental health teams in English locations from Devon to Doncaster in an attempt to curb a rise in rough sleeping in England.
Fourteen outreach teams will aim to get more rough sleepers on to a path to counselling, medication or other treatments and will seek out people “who have often been through incredibly traumatic experiences to ensure they get the help they need”, said Prof Tim Kendall, NHS England’s clinical national director for mental health.
Continue reading...Lord Butler says there is ‘strong public interest in the inquiry being carried out constructively’
The North Sea oil and gas industry is in decline, the shadow business minister Seema Malhotra said, as she defended plans to block new drilling licences, a move criticised by trade unions. Aubrey Allegretti has the story here.
MPs will hold a debate on Monday on proposals to ban members from the parliamentary estate if they are being investigated for a criminal offence and are deemed to pose a risk to other people.
Last night the government was debating whether to hold a vote on Monday on proposals to ban MPs accused of violent or sexual offences from the estate — after backlash from some Tory backbenchers. One senior Tory MP told Playbook they opposed the plan because it would overturn “common practice that you are innocent until proven guilty”.
Continue reading...Nice approves rimegepant for preventing migraines in cases where at least three previous treatments have failed
Thousands of people in England who get migraines could benefit from a drug that has been approved on the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the drugs regulator, said it was recommending rimegepant for preventing migraines in the approximately 145,000 adults where at least three previous preventive treatments had failed.
Continue reading...Health secretary Steve Barclay not confirming when strategy to increase numbers of doctors and nurses will be published
NHS leaders have raised concerns about the delay to the long-awaited workforce plan, after the health secretary, Steve Barclay, refused to give a deadline for its publication amid rumours it is considered too costly.
The plan, which was expected to be published on Tuesday, appears to have been delayed, according to the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery.
Barclay blamed the pandemic and “various things that have been happening in recent years” for the delay during broadcast interviews over the weekend. He had previously promised that the plan to increase the number of doctors and nurses would be published before the next general election.
Cordery said the plan, which has already been postponed from last year and aims to fix the UK’s crumbling healthcare system by plugging chronic staff shortages, was needed “as quickly as possible”.
Health groups raise alarm after Sir Mark Rowley says he will order officers not to attend 999 calls about mental health incidents
Thousands of people in a mental health crisis will be “left without support” under worrying and inappropriate police plans to “walk away” from emergency incidents, health chiefs have said.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, the Metropolitan police comissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that from September he would order the force’s police officers not to attend thousands of 999 calls about mental health incidents.
Continue reading...Observer investigation reveals Meta Pixel tool passed on private details of web browsing on medical sites
NHS trusts are sharing intimate details about patients’ medical conditions, appointments and treatments with Facebook without consent and despite promising never to do so.
An Observer investigation has uncovered a covert tracking tool in the websites of 20 NHS trusts which has for years collected browsing information and shared it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy.
Continue reading...Policy was uncovered by defenders of two women repeatedly detained when trying to re-enter the UK
A secret Home Office policy to detain people with the right to live in the UK at air and seaports has been found to be unlawful in the high court.
The policy applied to those with unpaid NHS debts and was only uncovered through evidence gathered from charities and lawyers fighting the cases of two mothers who were repeatedly detained.
Continue reading...Data prompts speculation NHS inability to cut waiting lists could make private healthcare ‘new normal’
Record numbers of people are paying for private healthcare, spending up to £3,200 on having a cataract removed and £15,075 on a new hip, amid growing frustration at NHS waiting lists.
Across the UK last year 272,000 people used their own funds to cover the cost of having an operation or diagnostic procedure at a private hospital. That was up from 262,000 the year before and a sharp rise on the 199,000 who did so in 2019, the year before the Covid pandemic struck.
Continue reading...PM has asked for further information before decided whether ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus will be asked to investigate Braverman. This blog is now closed
Starmer says Labour would zone in on the biggest killers.
He says it would get heart attacks and strokes down by a quarter within a decade.
Continue reading...Family of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had heart attack at home five minutes from hospital in Wrexham
A 58-year-old woman died alone curled up in a blanket on the floor of her bedroom as she waited more than five hours for an ambulance.
Relatives of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had a heart attack at her home in Wrexham, north Wales, only a short drive away from a hospital, but died before an ambulance reached her.
Continue reading...Signs that NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating surge in people resorting to private care
Patients are paying up to £550 an hour to see private GPs amid frustration at the delays many face getting an appointment with an NHS family doctor.
Growing numbers of paid-for GP services are opening up across Britain, in the latest sign of how the NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating a surge in people resorting to private healthcare.
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt’s freeze on allowances and thresholds will put a quarter of teachers and one-eighth of nurses in 40% income tax bracket
One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government’s record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people – one in five of all taxpayers – who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury’s attempt to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sector’s staffing crisis will have knock-on effect on whole NHS system, warns healthcare leader
UK ministers must set out how to recruit and retain thousands more mental health nurses to plug the profession’s biggest staff shortage, healthcare leaders are warning.
Mental health nurses account for nearly a third of all nursing vacancies across England, resulting in overstretched services that are struggling to deliver timely care, according to research carried out by the NHS Confederation’s mental health network.
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