Health and care sector latest developments
Starmer sets out six Labour pledges ahead of general election
Labour’s frontbench highlighted the party’s priorities to voters this morning at an event in Thurrock, a key battleground the party is hoping to win over.
Emphasising the second 'step' on the pledge card, shadow health and social care secretary Wes Streeting explained that a Labour government would cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.
An emotive and impactful speech from Nathaniel Dye, a terminal cancer patient, followed. Having waited 100 days for his treatment to start, he condemned the Conservative record on the NHS and hoped that a Labour government would ensure more people do not suffer the same experience.
In his speech, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer recalled visiting a Liverpool hospital where the predominant reason for children being admitted was rotten teeth. He concluded that these children have been neglected by the government.
He also told of a woman who “pleaded” with him to win the election and cut waiting lists, as she is waiting a further 12 months for an eye operation, after already waiting 18.
Junior doctors and the government agree to talks
Junior doctors in England have agreed to meet the government for talks with independent mediation, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.
The pay dispute has lasted longer than a year with no formal talks taking place since negotiations collapsed in December.
Chief executive of NHS Confederation Matthew Taylor has called it a “hugely positive step” and the Department of Health and Social Care said it was a “significant step forward.”
£85 million pledged to tackle antibiotic emergency
A package of up to £85 million to support the international community in tackling the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance will be announced today by the UK Government.
World leaders and experts, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the World Bank, will attend a global event hosted by the Royal Society to agree priority actions to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
The new funding comes a week after the government announced a new plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
BMA chairman condemns the way whistleblowing is regarded in NHS
In an op-ed for The Telegraph, the chair of the British Medical Association Phil Banfield has criticised the “terrible way” whistleblowing is regarded in the NHS, saying that doctors who raise issues are "often met with hostility and risk losing their careers."
Responding to his comments, health secretary Victoria Atkins told The Telegraph: “Every member of staff in the NHS should feel able to speak up without fear, and it’s essential that any concerns are taken very seriously to improve patient safety.”
Nine out of ten nurses in England work when ill, survey finds
A survey by the Royal College of Nurses has found that almost nine out of ten nurses come into work when ill. Last year 85 per cent of nurses still turned up for a shift at least once despite having issues such as stress, back pain, a cold, anxiety or depression. Forty-six per cent did the same between two and five times and 19 per cent did so on more than five occasions, according to the survey, shining a light on the pressure staff feel to help plug gaps in rotas and deliver care to patients under workforce strain.
MPs move to ban home abortion pills without seeing a doctor
A cross-party group of over 40 MPs has tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would ensure women have an in-person medical appointment before taking abortion pills at home, restoring the approach which applied before the pandemic. It is one of a series of amendments that are due to be considered next week.
NHSE board meeting
At today’s NHS England's board meeting a paper was published on health service productivity.
Responding to NHS England's board paper on NHS productivity, Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said:
“Health leaders recognise they have an important role to make the best of the resources they are given and to run their services as efficiently and safely as possible.
“It is encouraging that this paper shows that the NHS is making significant progress in these efforts, particularly following the seismic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and industrial action. The strikes alone have been estimated to have cost the NHS at least £3 billion so far, yet productivity across hospitals is 5.8 per cent higher than in 2022/23 and spending on agency staff has reduced by 13 per cent.
“Clearly the NHS has further progress to make and health leaders are fully committed to that. However, this will forever be a challenge if the government does not wake up to the scale of the population’s health problems and the capital investment that is desperately needed to truly modernise and transform what the health service can offer its patients.
“NHS England’s paper says that failures to invest in the NHS’s ageing estate is resulting in lost clinical time and that 12,000 instances have been reported over the last two years which have stopped clinical services from being delivered to patients. With the waiting times as high as they are, it is no wonder that frontline staff can often feel as though they are responding with one arm tied behind their back.
“This is exactly why we are calling on the next government to put the NHS on a more sustainable footing, including by increasing capital spending to at least £14.1 billion annually and to commit to fund and deliver the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, alongside an equivalent plan for social care.”
ICSs where staffing has grown by a quarter revealed
Several systems have increased their permanent staff numbers by around 25 per cent since the end of 2019 despite reporting large financial deficits, an analysis of official data suggests.
The analysis comes with health systems facing increasing pressure to constrain further staffing growth, and in some cases launching redundancy programmes to reduce headcounts.
Regulators are likely to pay particular attention to systems which have grown substantially and are falling far short of being able to balance their budgets.
Shropshire, Nottinghamshire and the Black Country were among those reporting an increase in their permanent acute, specialist and community headcounts of around a quarter in the four years to 2023, and deficits of more than £100 million for the financial year just ended, the data shows.
Between the end of 2011 and 2015, England’s full-time equivalent NHS workforce in England grew by 3 per cent, to just over 1 million. In the next four-year period, to the end of 2019, it grew by ten per cent, to 1.12 million.
‘Dangerous’ to rely on ringfenced inequalities funding, NHSE director warns
An NHS England (NHSE) lead has warned against ringfencing funding meant for systems to tackle health inequalities and has said it is “dangerous” for the NHS to get into a position where leaders only do something when told.
Professor Bola Owolabi, director of NHSE’s health inequalities improvement programme and a GP in north Derbyshire, instead urged leaders to “embrace [their] own agency to act”.
Integrated care systems have received a share of a £200 million health inequalities funding pot that was made recurrent by NHS England for 2023/24. Reports have emerged that some systems are using the funding to service their own deficits, or for other purposes.
Speaking at HSJ’s Reducing Health Inequalities Forum in Birmingham this month, Professor Owolabi called on them to battle to protect health inequalities allocations locally, on behalf of “the marginalised and the voiceless”, but she said national ringfencing was unwise.
She said: “I think if we have to ringfence every single pot of money, you will very quickly get to a position where only the things that are ringfenced get done.”
She continued: “What the NHS Confederation found in their [March 2024] report is that the ringfencing wasn’t the most powerful thing, it was the leadership. It was the CEOs and the chairs who knew what their portion was, were prepared to go their board, and argue the toss if necessary.”
‘Systematic’ cuts to private activity planned by stricken ICS
A health system with one of the largest elective backlogs in the country will implement a “systematic reduction” of its dependency on private hospitals, as part of a bid to cut costs.
Greater Manchester has the second largest elective backlog in England on a per capita basis, while also having one of the largest numbers of cases already waiting more than a year, relative to its size.
But the system is under intense pressure to improve its financial performance after its initial financial plan for 2024/25, which suggested a deficit of around £300 million was deemed “completely unacceptable” by NHS England, according to recent board papers.
A revised plan for a deficit of £207 million is also likely to be rejected by regulators, according to recent board minutes.
A board paper from its 1 May meeting outlines the urgent need to cut costs, including a “systematic reduction in our dependency on the independent sector”.
GPs in England to be balloted over ‘collective action’
Family doctors in England will be asked whether they will take part in “collective action” amid a row over the new contract for GP services in England.
This could mean GPs limit the number of patients they will see each day to 25.
It could also potentially see GPs stop performing work they are not formally contracted to do – including the completion of fit notes, prescriptions or investigations which should have taken place in the hospital setting, or asking hospitals to communicate with patients about re-booking hospital appointments.
Responding to the news that the BMA will be balloting GPs on whether to stage collective action, Ruth Rankine, director of the NHS Confederation’s primary care network, said:
“There was much to welcome from this year’s GP contract but crucially, the 1.9 per cent uplift for general practice in 2024/25 was never going to be enough and so sadly, it is of no surprise we are in this position where a vote is being put to GPs on whether to stage “collective action”.
“This settlement for the contract was extremely disappointing when the evidence is clear that investing in primary and community care leads to lower demand in hospital and emergency care. Our analysis shows that while every £1 invested in these services results in the economy as a whole getting £14 back in gross value added (GVA).
“GPs will now face an agonising dilemma as they balance the impact of service cuts, alongside their attempts to ensure primary care can be put on sustainable footing for the future.
"The NHS has seen progress is possible, with pay deals finally agreed for hospital consultants, SAS doctors and Agenda for Change staff, as well as independent mediation being planned to resolve the dispute with junior doctors. We now need the government to do everything it can to reach an agreement with GPs so that primary care and broader NHS services are not disrupted.
“Alongside this, we need an incoming government to commit to support primary care more substantially, including through additional multi-year investment and by building a strong primary care infrastructure at all layers of scale which can offer a greater range of services for patients and provide a more efficient use of limited resource.”
NHS England to increase virtual wards to reduce waiting times
The NHS will increase virtual ward use as new analysis shows that 9,000 hospital admissions have been avoided in the south east in the past year thanks to the initiative.
Patients suffering from respiratory conditions or heart failure are set to be treated through an intravenous drip or a nebuliser from home.
Hospitals are being encouraged to refer more patients directly to virtual wards.
Manchester mayor calls for “fundamental rewiring” of politics after infected blood scandal
Andy Burnham has argued that the infected blood inquiry must act as a catalyst to prevent such “colossal” state failures from happening again.
The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester called for a “fundamental rewiring” of political system can prevent more ‘colossal’ state failures.
In 2017, he used his last speech in parliament to call for a public inquiry into the scandal, denouncing a “criminal cover-up on an industrial scale.”
