Health News Blog

Safety fears as nurses cover for doctors
Almost half of hospitals in the UK are deploying advanced practioners, generally senior nurses, to cover gaps in doctors’ rotas, according to figures obtained by the British Medical Association under freedom of information.

£21 billion still owed on PFI deals
An investigation shows that 69 trusts are locked into paying £21.1 billion to private companies over the next 20 years. Yet Streeting is planning a form of PFI to fund his new neighbourhood clinics.

Why reject Palantir? Read this
Palantir is a data analytics firm specialising in artificial intelligence technologies and software, used by countries for surveillance, border enforcement, policing and warfare. In early 2024, Palantir signed a deal with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to provide “support for war-related missions”. Read on to discover the truth about Palantir.

Users of Epic patient records reject Palantir
Almost all trusts using the Epic electronic patient record system have resisted using Palantir's federated data platform. 

Palantir: Sign letter to Streeting
Please add your name to this open letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, telling him to use the break clause as soon as possible to get Palantir out of the NHS.

MPs demand Palantir is kicked out
MPs have queued up to demand the government scraps its £330m NHS contract with the spy-tech company Palantir calling it “dreadful” and “shameful”.

Streeting's clinics are funded by BlackRock
The government is allowing BlackRock to finance the rollout of up to 200 neighbourhood health centres, with the aim of having one in every community by 2035. BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers, already owns 65 NHS GP surgeries.

Committee has doubts about Palantir & NHS data
Chi Onwurah is a Labour MP who heads the science, parliament's innovation and technology select committee. She flagged concerns in three areas: how the contract was awarded to the company; the use of patient data, distrust in Palantir and the issues around Peter Mandelson’s role in the deal.

Reform will spend £17 billion in private healthcare
Reform's manifesto sets out a programme of redirecting public finances to private healthcare providers continuing a trajectory that successive Conservative Party governments have pursued, but going significantly further.

Deaths due to overwelmed departments
This HSJ article is behind a paywall. It says at least eight cancer patients were harmed and in some cases died because of operational and admin failures in an “overwhelmed” hospital department. An FOI has revealed. A consultant complained about being “overwhelmed with the volume of work we are managing as a team”.

Covid inquiry: NHS close to collapse
The Covid inquiry says "There was clearly overwhelm....... lower levels of care were provided to patients [who] did not always get the care they needed, notwithstanding the efforts of healthcare workers. This caused often unbearable stress and distress to patients, their loved ones and the healthcare workers looking after them."

'Corridor care is harming patients'
Delayed access to emergency or urgent treatment results in the avoidable deaths of over 16,000 NHS patients every year. An Age UK report shows a shocking 525-fold increase in the number of instances of corridor care of 12 hours or more since 2015/16.

Campaigning works!
A campaign by Keep Our NHS Public North East demanding information on the state of outsourced sexual health services has culminated in Newcastle City Council ending a 4-year contract early and bringing in-person services back into the NHS.

Trump NHS deal bad for NHS
We will be paying more for drugs and getting less back. The OBR has estimated that in the medium term this could cost the NHS an extra £3bn a year. That’s £3bn going to American companies, not into more GP appointments.

NHS to miss waiting targets
The NHS is set to miss key targets to shorten waiting times for help at A&E, cancer care and planned hospital treatment. The findings will concern Keir Starmer, the prime minister, given to “get the NHS back on its feet”.

Biggest scandal of all time
ITV programme on VIP lane contracts forces us to consider "...something that is almost too disgusting to contemplate: that when our country faced one of its darkest hours, certain people in charge saw not a crisis, but an opportunity."

Covid PPE contracts: Tory leaves the Lords
The Conservative peer Peter Gummer will leave the House of Lords after an investigation found he committed five breaches of standards over Covid PPE deals.

Report urges termination of Palantir contract 
A Medact report recommends the commissioners to  decline the implementation of FDP or any other Palantir products in their local data systems and urges NHS England to terminate its contract with Palantir Technologies.

Privatised eye care undermines NHS
High street opticians can refer patients directly to cataract clinics leading to a lowering of the threshold for surgery (provider led demand). Patients in affluent areas are more likely to be referred, increasing health inequalities. The proportion of the budget for eye services spent on cataract surgery has increased at the expense of funding then left for NHS.

Do ICBs have a future?
You may not have access to this HSJ article, but it questions the value of Integrated Care. "Widespread scepticism about commissioners stems from the fact that, despite the NHS’s 30-plus-year experiment with the purchaser/provider split, the evidence for its efficacy is mixed at best. Many think that ICBs simply get in the way."