14th June 2022

Corporate surgery owner accused of profiteering
Operose Health, owned by US insurance giant Centene, has been allowed buy up more than 50 GP practices across England. An investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme found that Operose was using physician associates to undertake appointments because they are cheaper to employ than GPs.

Rundown hospitals a danger to patients
Health leaders are warning that without an urgent injection of capital funding, patient safety is at risk owing to lack of maintenance on hospital buildings. The NHS in England is facing a £9 billion maintenance backlog. Half of that sum is required to tackle failings classed as posing either a “high” or “significant” risk to patients and staff.

Yet Javid says NHS doesn’t need more money
Despite the rundown state of our hospitals, see above, Sajid Javid said the health service already had the resources it needed and did not require more to care for patients effectively.

NHS faces funding cut in 2022-23
Every NHS health system has seen their core recurrent funding reduce in real terms in 2022-23. Public sector inflation, forecast to be 4 per cent this year, will wipe out the 3.3 per cent cash increase in the funding allocated to integrated care systems.

Private cancer treatment provider collapses
Rutherford Health runs four cancer hailing the game-changing’ elective recovery deal to treat NHS patients. Now we learn it’s set to be liquidated. Rutherford is owned by Schroder UK Public Private Trust.

Demoralised nurses driven out of profession
According to the Royal College of Nursing most nurses warn that staffing levels on their last shift were not sufficient to meet the needs of patients, and that some are now quitting their jobs.