Health News Blog

27th May 2022

Is your health data at risk?
The government has become acutely aware of the commercial value of our personal data, especially our sensitive health data. This raises concerns that existing protections for sensitive patient data may be undermined by new measures to allow greater commercial access.

Ambulance service will collapse in August
This is behind a paywall, but in essence a struggling ambulance trust could face collapse entirely this summer if the region’s worsening problems with hospital handover delays are not taken more seriously.

'Barn theatre': what about staffing?
This is being hailed as a fantastic idea, but does it address the root cause of waiting lists at all? Does having a larger theatre achieve anything when there's a shortage of staff?

Thousands of NHS workers may quit
Health leaders fear significant numbers of lower-paid workers will leave for higher wages in the private sector amid rising food and heating bills and soaring inflation.

Nurse fined over pay protest wins compensation
A 61-year-old mental health nurse who worked throughout the pandemic, received a £10,000 fixed penalty notice for organising the protest on 7 March 2021 over the government’s proposed 1% pay rise. Manchester police has now accepted that the fines were unlawfully imposed.

Numbers of nurses leaving NHS highest in 4 years
More than 27,000 nurses and midwives quit the NHS last year, with many blaming job pressures, the Covid pandemic and poor patient care for their decision.

A&E waits 4 times longer than official figures
Internal NHS England figures for February and March show around one in five admissions waited more than 12 hours from arriving until being admitted to a ward. The official stats published by NHSE record a shorter, time period from ‘decision to admit’ to admission.

KPMG fined £14 million for forging Carillion audit
Carillion collapsed with £7 billion of debts in January 2018, resulting in 3,000 job losses and causing chaos across hundreds of its projects, including two big hospitals. This was close to the biggest fine which was against £15 million Deloitte in 2020 over audits of the software company Autonomy. Yet they're allowed to carry on making billions - why?

Corporate GP contracts given £18 per patient more
The traditional GP surgery is operates with a GMS contract, General Medical Services. To encourage private companies to run primary care APMS (Alternative Provider Medical Services) contracts were introduced. For a 10K patient practice they get £180K more. Fair?

MHRA: board members funded by big pharma
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe. Six of its board members are receiving payments from the pharmaceutical industry.

Acute pressure on NHS 111 is 'shocking'
A senior nurse tells how the NHS 111 telephone advice service is increasingly unable to help those who ring seeking help. This is just one result of years of underfunding; and a staffing crisis.

Shortage of GPs and their mental health
"This is a crisis for GPs and an emergency for patients. Years of underfunding and neglect have severely damaged general practice leaving us with a skeleton staff across Great Britain and no plan for filling the gaps."

Tory donors given public health jobs
One, Oluwole Kolade, is a partner of Livingbridge, a private equity firm with extensive investments in private healthcare. Another, Simon Blagden, donated £376,000 to the Tories; he has been made a member of the UK Health Security Agency advisory board. UKHSA replaced Public Health England in April 2021.

Health and Care Bill: Why it matters
Despite the concerns of many NHS staff, official bodies and health campaigners, the Health and Care Bill became an act of parliament on 28^th April. So why the Health and Care Act is a threat? Because possible denial of emergency care, a worsening of the staffing crisis and increased privatisation. Read more here.

Ambulance waits: 40,000 put at risk
This article is behind a paywall. In essence the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives has estimated that more than 38,000 patients were put at risk of harm during March – more than 4,000 of them seriously – while they waited in an ambulance outside hospital.

£2 billion a year on private mental health beds
The NHS’s increasing reliance on independent care providers comes despite some health service bosses’ concerns that there are persistent and sometimes fatal problems with the quality and safety of care at private mental health units. Here's one view on unsafe private mental health provision.

PPE scandal: Tory peer's home raided
PPE Medpro was awarded two government contracts worth £203 million. Tory peer Michelle Mone appears to have been instrumental in PPE Medpro being entered into the “high priority” VIP lane in May 2020. Her home and the offices of PPE Medpro were searched by police.