Health and care sector latest developments
NHS medical negligence persisting in England ‘despite 24 years of warnings’
Medical negligence in the NHS keeps harming and killing patients because governments and health service bosses have not acted on 24 years’ worth of warnings, MPs have said.
In a report published today, the public accounts committee (PAC) excoriates the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England for allowing the cost of mistakes to balloon to £3.6 billion a year.
Between them, the two bodies have failed to take ‘any meaningful action’ to address the problem in England, despite four PAC reports from as early as 2002 advising them to do so, the committee says.
Middle classes drive surge in ADHD prescriptions
The NHS becoming ‘heavily dependent’ on private clinics to diagnose ADHD has resulted in patients from more advantaged backgrounds accessing prescriptions more easily, analysis has found.
According to the Independent, experts have said that ‘sharp-elbowed’ patients are able to get a diagnosis at a private clinic rather than remain on long NHS waiting lists, with a fivefold increase over the past decade in the number of people from wealthier backgrounds who have been prescribed medication.
Analysis of NHS data by The Times revealed that people in north-west London are about three times as likely to be prescribed stimulants as those in Yorkshire, showing a postcode lottery in terms of diagnoses.
DHSC appoints interim commercial chief
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has appointed an interim director general to run its commercial and growth directorate until July.
The Health Service Journal reports that Fiona Bride, NHS England’s director of medicines value and access, and acting chief commercial officer, has been given the role for the next six months.
Seven of the 16 posts on the joint NHS England/DHSC executive are now filled by interims, although a permanent workforce director general is set to join soon. Chief operating officer Tom Riordan is due to leave the DHSC at the end of February.
The Secretary of State for Health: Safety agency will be integrated into ‘failing’ CQC carefully
The Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, has said the government will approach integrating the NHS’s ‘successful’ safety watchdog into the ‘failing’ Care Quality Commission (CQC) with “enormous care”.
Speaking at the launch of the Global State of Patient Safety 2025 report in the House of Lords this week he addressed the recommendations made by NHS England chair Penny Dash in her review of the regulatory bodies involved in patient safety. These included subsuming The Health Services Safety Investigations Branch (HSSIB) into the CQC.
HSSIB – originally styled the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch – was established in 2017 while Sir Jeremy Hunt was health secretary to conduct independent investigations into patient safety incidents across the NHS in England.
CQC praises maternity units for recruiting more staff
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has upgraded all three of a trust’s maternity units to ‘good’ ratings, saying its ‘maternity leaders had increased the number of midwives and specialists’ so it could provide “a better standard of care”.
University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust is one of a dozen trusts being reviewed by a government maternity investigation – likely because it has improved since an investigation a decade ago identified a ‘lethal mix’ of failures.
The CQC today issued reports covering maternity care at its three hospital sites, and emergency care at two.
Services at Furness General Hospital and Lancaster Royal – which both have full obstetric-led units – were upgraded from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’.
Health bill won’t survive the Lords intact, says ex-minister
A former Labour minister has predicted government will have to retreat on its planned abolition of Healthwatch, and described its approach to the NHS as “command and control from the Department of Health and Social Care”.
Lord Philip Hunt of King’s Heath was an energy minister until he retired from frontline politics last spring. He was a health minister in the 2000s, served in several shadow health teams, and is a former NHS leader.
Lord Hunt discusses the prospects for the government’s planned health bill on this week’s HSJ Health Check podcast.
He expected the government to come under “huge pressure” to ditch its proposed abolition of Healthwatch, the public voice organisation, when the bill is discussed in the Lords.
