HEALTHWATCH AND PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT ASSOCIATION
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NEWS - FEBRUARY 2015
UPHEAVAL IN GP FUNDING
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PER CAPITA SPEND, NHS
Spend per head of population on the National Health Service in England is shown in table below and is stated in financial years.  Latest available spend per head figures are for the financial year 2012-13.

England NHS health spend per head
Year            Spend per head £     Source
1997-98               712                   Office for National Statistics Mid 1997 population projection and net NHS spend 1997-98
2010-11             1,861                  HM Treasury Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2014
2012-13             1,912                  HM Treasury Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2014
EXTRA CASH TO LAs FOR FASTER DISCHARGE FROM HOSPITALS
The Government has just issued a ring-fenced grant for £25 million to councils that have hard-pressed hospitals in their areas to facilitate faster discharge through additional re-ablement packages.
NO REQUIREMENT IN ADULT SOCIAL CARE CURRENTLY FOR A CARE WORKER TO HOLD A SPECIFIC QUALIFICATION TO WORK IN THIS ROLE
The Department does not set the standards/criteria for attainment of NVQ qualifications. This is the responsibility of the appropriate awarding bodies working in partnership with employers, employer representative bodies and sector skills council in the relevant sector. Any proposed revision to NVQ qualifications would be a matter for consideration by the awarding bodies with relevant employers, employer representative bodies and sector skills council.

There is no requirement in adult social care currently for a care worker to hold a specific qualification in order to work in this role. 

However, under the Care Quality Commission’s registration system, it is the responsibility of the social care employer to determine the range of duties undertaken by the care worker and to ensure they have the necessary training and skills for those duties.
STAFF / COSTS OF NHS ENGLAND
The total number of whole time equivalent (WTE) staff employed by NHS England as of November 2014 is 5605.47 and their total cost for 2014-15 is £312,897,165. The split by grade can be seen in this downloadable table ...
SINGLE-HANDED GPs
The latest figures, published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre in September 2013, show that there are 891 single-handed general practitioner (GP) practices in England, representing 11.2% of the total number of GP practices in England.

There are 1,445 GP practices in London, of which 238 are single-handed GP practices, representing 16.5% of the GP practices in London.

NHS England is responsible for commissioning primary care services and has advised that there are no plans to close existing small or single-handed practices. The aim is to look at how primary care services can continue to be developed to offer patients better access and more choice.
NICE / LGA GUIDANCE RE. CARE HOMES
18 February 2015 - 17 pages
This briefing summarises NICE's key recommendations for local authorities and partner organisations on the health and care of older people in care homes. It also highlights relevant quality standards. It is particularly relevant to health and wellbeing boards, scrutiny panels, councillors and adult social care commissioners.
NHS STATISTICS  ...   Author: Carl Baker ...  41 pages
Topic: Ambulance services, Emergency services, Health services

What statistics are available on Accident & Emergency facilities in the UK, and what do they show? There are several sources providing data on attendance and performance at NHS and independent sector A&E departments. This note provides summaries and visualisations of a wide range of A&E trends, including: levels of attendance over time; attendance by age, time and day of the week; various measures of waiting times; reason for attendance; and unplanned re-attendance. It also explores the extent and limitations of the available data sources.
 
A&E data for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is published in separate statistical bulletins. This document focuses mainly on statistics for England, but also contains summaries of trends for the other UK countries.
Data is presented at a national level with some regional and provider-level summaries. Data for individual local providers or NHS area teams is available for many of the measures discussed here, and can be obtained by contacting the Library or consulting the sources referenced in this document.
 
More detailed local and national data for the most recent year (2013/14) can be found in RP14-22, Accident and Emergency Attendance and Performance: England 2013/14.
MOST PROVIDERS BELIEVE THAT THEY CANNOT SIGN CONTRACTS BEFORE APRIL 2015, SURVEY FINDS ...
February, 2015
A majority of provider sector finance chiefs believe that their organisations will not be able to sign contracts before the start of the coming financial year. The 53 finance and commercial leaders surveyed by NHS Providers largely thought neither the financial values of the contracts, nor activity levels could be agreed by the end of March.

NHS England and Monitor revealed last month that their proposed 2015-16 tariff had received objections from providers responsible for three-quarters of all tariff funded services.

Under the Health Act 2012, this means the national bodies must either refer their proposals to the Competition and Markets Authority for review or consult again on revised prices.

The majority of respondents to the survey (81 per cent) said that revision and further consultation on the national tariff proposals for 2015-16 was their preferred option. 

Only 6 per cent said their preferred option would be signing up to an alternative “voluntary tariff”, as proposed last week by NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens. 

However, when asked if they would sign up to a voluntary tariff, 86 per cent said it would depend on the offer.
CCGs:  LIST OF THOSE WHICH TAKE FULL CONTROL OF PRIMARY CARE BUDGETS IN APRIL 2015
NHS England has revealed the 64 clinical commissioning groups that will take full control of their local primary care budgets from April.

The CCGs will be responsible for the performance management and budgets of their member GP practices, including managing complaints about practices and GPs.

There is a regional divide in the CCGs which will be taking on these responsibilities: 24 CCGs in the North (35.3 per cent of CCGs in the region) and 26 in the Midlands and East (42.6 per cent) have been approved for have full delegated commissioning of their member practices. However, just eight in the South (16 per cent) and six in London (18.8 per cent) have been approved

The 64 CCGs taking on delegated commissioning are listed here ...
HOW ARE WE DOING?
17 February 2015 ... 20 pages
This paper provides a range of summary statistical indicators for NHS England in the following areas: accident and emergency attendance and performance; ambulance call volume and response times; waiting times for routine treatment; waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment; cancelled operations; delayed transfers of care; diagnostic waiting times and activity; waiting times for mental health treatment; workforce numbers for doctors, nurses and other staff; hospital activity, referrals and admissions; and bed availability and occupancy. In each case, trends are given over several years.

A new version of this document will be published in May 2015.
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP15-7/nhs-indicators-february-2015
NHS PAYMENTS TO GENERAL PRACTICE, ENGLAND, 2013-2014
Key facts

The data (rounded to the nearest £100,000) show the sum of NHS payments made in 2013-14 through the HSCIC GP Payments system was: 
  • £7,631.7 million across 8,060 general practice service providers of which:
    • £3,934.4 million was to 4,478 providers with a GMS contract
    • £3,632.4 million was to 3,499 providers with a PMS contract
    • £64.8 million was to 83 providers with an APMS contract
The sum of NHS payments made in 2013-14 through the HSCIC GP Payments system for dispensing and non-dispensing GPs was:
    • £1,653.6 million is to 1,143 providers for dispensing practices
    • £5,978.1 million is to 6,917 providers for non-dispensing practices
  • The average sum of NHS payments to a provider was almost £947,000 compared to a median sum of £827,000
  • The average NHS payment to a provider per registered patient was £136
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB16847
APPLICATIONS FOR GP TRAINING DOWN 6%
Applications for GP training have fallen for a second successive year, striking a huge blow for the recruitment of future GPs to relieve the pressure on Practices.

The national figures, which Health Education England has refused to release - but have been obtained by Pulse, show a fall of 6.2% on last year, with only 5,112 applicants in total.  They come as a major blow to the medium-term future of the NHS, with all political parties and NHS England acknowledging that boosting GP numbers is essential if the health service is to adapt to a changing population and a shift of care from hospitals to the community.

The GPC has estimated previously that typically fewer than half of these applicants will ultimately take up places on GP training scheme, while local leaders have claimed that only 50% of training places in some areas have been filled so far.  But HEE claims that it is still ‘well on course’ to hit its Government-mandated target of having 3,250 GPs in training by August 2016, which itself was pushed back from August 2015

Today’s figures - which show the numbers of graduates applying for the first round of GP recruitment from 11 November to 4 December last year - continue a decline in GP recruitment in England.  Last year, only 2,688 graduates were recruited - 12% below the target figure - despite HEE running an ‘unprecedented’ third round of recruitment.
REQUIREMENT TO CONSULT LOCAL HEALTHWATCH
Statutory Guidance to Trust Special Administrators   - Department of Health written statement made on 12 February 2015 
SIR ROBERT FRANCIS - HIS REVIEW INTO WHISTLEBLOWING IN THE NHS
Plans for new legal protection for NHS whistleblowers 
                                                                                  Click on the image to download the document
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REPORT - February 2015 - 223 Pages
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - February 2015 - 23 Pages
HEALTHWATCH ENGLAND - DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
HANSARD Written Answers on 9 Feb 2015
  • Jamie Reed (Shadow Minister (Health); Copeland, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding was allocated to Healthwatch England for (a) 2013-14, (b) 2014-15 and (c) 2015-16.
  • Norman Lamb (The Minister of State, Department of Health; North Norfolk, Liberal Democrat)
Healthwatch England was allocated £4,083,000 in 2013/14 and £4,157,000 in 2014/15.
Final allocations for 2015/16 have not yet been made.
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MyNHS - Greater Transparency for Better Health and Care MyNHS - Planning 2015 - 2017
TRANSPARENCY IN THE NHS
Improving transparency in the NHS -  last modified Feb 12, 2015 02:30 PM ... 13 pages
The MyNHS website enables health and care organisations, as well as the public, to compare the performance of services over a range of measures, at both local and national level. 

The Department of Health, NHS England, Care Quality Commission, Public Health England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre are working together on how this site can be improved and are keen to hear suggestions about how to develop it and help make it as useful as possible.

The site aims to drive improvement in health and care by encouraging organisations and professional teams to compare their performance and see where they can improve.
HEALTH COMMITTEE:  ORAL EVIDENCE SESSION - IMPACT OF ACTIVITY AND DIET ON HEALTH
On Tuesday, 10 February 2015, the Health Committee holds its second and final oral evidence session on Impact of Activity and Diet on Health.
Witnesses:
At 2.30pm
·         Professor John Wass - Academic Vice-President, Royal College of Physicians
·         Dr Janet Atherton - President, Association of Directors of Public Health
·         Dr Jane Moore   - Director of Public Health and Professor in Public Health at Coventry University
·         Dr Dagmar Zeuner - Director of Public Health, London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames
·         Kim Thompson - Health Lead, Sport England

At 3.30pm
·         Jane Ellison MP - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health, Department of Health
·         Professor Kevin Fenton - Director of Health and Wellbeing, Public Health England
·         Dr Alison Tedstone - Director of Diet and Obesity, Public Health England
PRIMARY CARE SUPPORT SERVICES - SHORTLIST 
1.     Primary Care Support (PCS) services are currently delivered by approximately 1,800 staff currently working in 38 NHS
        England locations and a variety of third party supplier sites. The services cover a range of critical functions for patients
        and for primary care contractors, and are currently provided by a mixture of in-house and outsourced providers.
2.     The services were transferred to NHS England in April 2013 with an understanding that, in line with all other functions,
        they would be subject to a 40% reduction in management costs by April 2014.
3.     These services have been put out to tender.
4.     NHS England released a press statement on 09 January 2015 naming the shortlisted suppliers:
        -     Capgemini working with South East CSU (SECSU)
        -     Equiniti
        -     Capita working with Anglia Community Enterprise (ACE)
The shortlisted suppliers will be submitting final bids in February 2015. It is expected that the Award of Contract will take place in May 2015.
http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/item8-board-290115.pdf
CQC PUBLISHES ITS REPORT ON MONITORING THE MENTAL HEALTH ACT IN 2013/2014
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has today published its Annual Report on its functions of keeping under review the operation of the Mental Health Act 1983.  The CQC became the monitoring body for the Act five years ago and since then the uses of the Mental Health Act (MHA) continue to grow.

In 2013/14 the Act was used 53,176 times to detain people for longer than 72 hours. At the end of the year, 23,531 people were subject to the Act, either detained in hospital or under a community treatment order. 

During 2013/14, we carried out 1,227 MHA monitoring visits, meeting more than 4,500 patients. We also carried out 174 inspections which highlighted the variation of care provided to detained patients. Too often we found services that are not routinely involving patients in their treatment. In addition, we are concerned with bed availability and the increasing number of patients being detained far away from home.  The main findings from the report are centred around: 

·         Protecting patients’ rights and autonomy
·         Assessment, transport and admission to hospital
·         Additional considerations for specific patients
·         Care, support and treatment in hospital
·         Treatments subject to special rules and procedures 
·         Safe and therapeutic responses to disturbed behaviour
·         Leaving hospital

You can read the  full or summary copy of the report, infographic and accompanying press release on our website. Do let me know if you have any questions. 

Carrie James - Parliamentary & Stakeholder Engagement Officer  ...  Parliamentary, Government and Stakeholder Engagement Strategy and Intelligence Directorate - Care Quality Commission 
Finsbury Tower, 103-105 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8TG
External  020 7448 1721  ...  Blackberry  07717 547 673  ...  Internal  481721
Carrie.James@cqc.org.uk
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HEALTHWATCH DEVELOPMENT ... 2011 - 2012
REVALIDATION OF DOCTORS IN ENGLAND
PREVENTING FUTURE DEATHS
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