Health and care sector latest developments
Public Accounts Committee report finds NHS recovery targets being missed
NHS England has failed to meet its post-COVID-19 recovery goals to shorten patient waiting lists, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found in its report, published today.
Despite spending £3.24 billion on transforming diagnostic and surgical services, NHS England has missed its recovery targets by 'significant margins', leaving many people waiting too long for tests and treatment.
The PAC’s report finds these failures have been driven in part by NHS England’s and the government’s 'flawed' approach to improving its own services, spending billions without sufficient clarity on delivery expectations.
Among the recommendations are that NHS England and the government focus reporting on patient outcomes to ensure funding delivers its intended outcomes, and the report also advises government to avoid treating digital solutions as a 'cure-all' to reducing waiting lists and cautions realism in tackling the scale of the task.
Clive Betts MP, deputy chair of the public accounts committee, voiced concerns that the “absorption of NHSE and 50 per cent cuts to local health boards” are demonstrating “chilling echoes” of the poor practices seen on the HS2 and New Hospital Programmes. He called for more clarity in the government’s plans that can “marry its ambitions to reality”.
Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, recognised the efforts of health leaders and their teams to reform outpatient services and reduce waiting lists, but called for “more capital funding to modernise NHS building and for digital infrastructure to be upgraded so that they can provide faster, more efficient care”.
England’s first ever Men’s Health Strategy published
The government has launched its landmark strategy targeted at tackling men’s health- mental health challenges, improving physical health and reducing inequalities so men and boys live longer, healthier lives.
Men can be less likely to seek help and suffer in silence, but prone to adopting riskier behaviours like smoking, drinking, gambling and drug use, which can culminate in health issues that have knock on impacts on families, workplaces and communities.
Suicide is one of the biggest killers of men under 50 and three-quarters of all suicides are men. The strategy outlines comprehensive plans to address men’s mental health, investing £3.6 million in suicide-prevention schemes over the next three years and partnering with the Premier League’s Together Against Suicide initiative. It ultimately aims to break down the stigma surrounding men’s mental through education and training in suicide prevention.
Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said that the strategy “marks a turning point” that meets men “where they are” by “giving them the support they need to live longer, healthier lives”.
Up to 20 trusts will still need bailouts in 2030
Fifteen to 20 trusts are likely to receive national funding to cover deficits in five years’ time, the Health Service Journal understands, despite plans by NHS England to phase the process out.
NHS England announced changes to its financial management yesterday, including how it will reduce reliance on a £2 billion central pot of “deficit support funding” to balance books in future.
The new medium-term framework for revenue finance and contracting also confirmed how quickly NHS England will move to “fair share” allocations, the move from system control totals to requiring all organisations to break even, and how elective recovery will be funded.
It said organisations with breakeven or surplus targets in 2025/26 will have the same expectation up to 2028/29. For others, deficit support funding (DSF) will be made available, but the pot will get smaller each year.
Trust takes on £300 million commissioning budget in IHO-style deal
An integrated care board has handed control of its acute and community services commissioning to a 'health and care partnership' hosted by an acute trust.
The South and West Hertfordshire Health and Care Partnership is hosted by West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals Trust (WHTH) and has been delegated decision-making over local acute activity as of last month.
It had taken on adult community services in April, and together the budgets are worth more than £300 million a year.
The partnership is constituted as a committee of WHTH.
The government’s 10 Year Health Plan proposes integrated health organisations (IHOs), where a provider holds a population-based budget allocations for its footprint, will become 'the norm'.
Major tech supplier warned over risk to patients
A coroner has warned Optum UK, a major supplier of technology to the primary care sector, that failure to address a known issue with its software poses “a risk that future deaths could occur”.
Optum was issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report last week following the conclusion of an eight-month-long inquest into the death of an 88-year-old patient who was admitted to Macclesfield District General Hospital in March.
During the course of the inquest, coroner Alexander Frodsham heard evidence that after a repeat prescription is not re-ordered for 12 months, “the medication is removed by the (software)” and no longer appears on a patient’s record, without notifying or requiring authorisation from a GP.
While the coroner stated this issue “played no causative part” in the death of the patient in question, he stressed that making alterations to lifelong prescriptions without notifying or requiring authorisation from a GP “gives rise to the risk that a patient will not be provided with the medication they need”.
Experts warn ultra-processed food is global health threat
A team of international experts have warned that action is needed to reduce ultra-processed food (UPF) in diets worldwide because of their threat to human health.
The experts’ article, published in The Lancet, argues that the way people eat is changing, with cheap and highly-processed meals becoming commonplace, and that this is increasing our risk of a range of chronic diseases, including obesity and depression.
The experts, which include co-authors Prof Carlos Monteiro, from the University of Sao Paulo, and Dr Phillip Baker, from the University of Sydney, have warned that governments need 'to step up' and introduce warnings and higher taxes on UPF products, to help fund access to more nutritious foods.
