Health News Blog

PFI mark 2 here we come!
All the indications are that Streeting's Neighbourhood Clinics will be built using a form of PFI. Of previous PFI, the government's own National Audit Office: (NAO) said "future charges that continue until the 2040s amount to £199 billion – money that could finance the entire NHS for 20 months."
In its 2018 report the NAO said "The Treasury Committee ....estimated the cost of a privately financed hospital to be 70% higher than the PSC" (Public Sector Comparator, whereby the government directly raises the capital cost), see page 15.

Need for more GP training posts?
Applications for GP specialty training have nearly doubled in just the last two years, with four out of every five doctors who applied to become GPs unable to do so. But are there enough training posts?

ICB can't afford severance pay
Under instruction from Streeting ICBs are required to cut staff costs by 50%, but they can't afford redundancy payments.

Accountable Care here we come!
Despite changing the name of Integrated Care Organisations from Accountable Care early early in their development, the gloves are off. We're getting US Style Acccountable Care, and rationing of care is coming with it. Deficit funding will be phased out. Streeting - ”the fund will not go to trusts which run deficits this year”. So all trusts are forced to become deniers of care, regardless of consequences.

Refusing to acknowledge the obvious
Streeting is to chair a "task force" into the maternity crisis. 14 trusts are named but you might as well lump all the rest in too. After 14 years of underfunding, staffing crisis and a toxic culture in maternity work as midwives are stretched to cover more patients than is reasonable, the answers are staring him in the face!

10 Year Plan - PFI mark 2?
Oh sorry, it's not going to be PFI it's PPP ... public private partnerships. So many organisations, for example, the Public Accounts Committee found that PFI was not working for the taxpayer, with various projects’ owners increasingly remote from the public service being delivered. Yet this form of financing from banks and foreign investors is exactly what Streeting is planning. 

Surely PFI isn't set to return?
Wes Streeting wants to fund 200 new NHS health centres through PFI. But the Public Finance Initiative was a disaster in the past – locking hospitals and schools into decades of expensive contracts.

Alternatives to PFI
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) questions whether public borrowing is even the correct constraint to focus on. Some economists argue that sovereign, currency-issuing governments like the UK can never “run out of money”.

Want have your say on PFI?
Here's a way for you to express your doubts about PFI. Send a letter to the government questioning the wisdom of PFI.

Airedale hospital workers subco strike
GMB union says more than 150 porters, domestics and catering and security staff are to strike. They were outsourced to AGH Solutions Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, on worse terms and conditions than hospital colleagues.  

AI - will it really benefit patients?
Studies have shown that AI in healthcare has benefits, but researchers caution that it should complement rather than replace clinical judgement.

10 Year Plan: No plan for emergency care
Campaigner Greg Dropkin takes the plan to task "yes there's a deep crisis in emergency care, but [it] fails to address its causes." For example "Inpatient beds are unavailable because patients who are medically fit for discharge cannot be discharged safely due to lack of social care." And he reveals other unaddressed causes.

10 Year Plan: a repeat of Darzi centres?
The Health Foundation says Neighbourhood Health Centres are very similar to Labour’s ‘Darzi centre’ or ‘polyclinic’ projects from the 2000s. The ambition of Darzi centres was well received, but in practice they faced a number of challenges: specifically unnecessary duplication with other local services and questions about cost-effectiveness.

Student nurse fears for an NHS job
A student midwife fears she will be unable to get a job after completing 2,300 hours of unpaid placement work. Why oh why? Also, vacancies would disappear if we cancelled student debt after years of service. Why ever not instigate this?

Are these people fit to run our NHS?
Here is a list of recent appointments to the boards of the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. Are they fit and proper people to support the founding principles of the NHS, that it is publicly-run and free of the taint of private profit? In whose interests will they work?