Health and care sector latest developments

Dental patients to benefit from 700,000 extra urgent appointments 

Hundreds of thousands of people across England will soon be able to access urgent and emergency dental care as the government and the NHS rolls out 700,000 extra urgent appointments.

NHS England has today written to integrated care boards (ICB) across the country, directing health chiefs in each region to stand up thousands of urgent appointments over the next year.   

The extra appointments will be available from April and have been targeted at dental deserts – areas where patients particularly struggle to access NHS dentists. 

However, it has been reported that ICBs will be given no extra funding for the appointments, with funding to come from within dental allocations. 

The government also confirmed that it will be scrapping the new patient premium, which was introduced as part of the dental recovery plan published in 2024, and which is said to have cost £88 million. 

Data published last week showed the number of new patients accessing NHS dentists has actually fallen by 3 per cent since the scheme was introduced. 

Ruth Rankine, director of the primary network at the NHS Confederation welcomed the announcement about the 700,000 extra urgent appointments, but warned that ‘further clarity is needed to understand how the government plans to address ‘dental deserts’ where more deprived or rural local authority areas have fewer NHS dentists than those in more affluent urban areas to improve equitable access.’ 

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto pledged ‘a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas that need them most.’ 

New elective contract ‘unworkable’, say providers 

New national payment rules for private providers of elective care are ‘unworkable’ and will undermine patient choice, the sector is warning. 

Independent sector sources say NHS England’s proposed 2025-26 contract, which will cap the amount commissioners will pay for elective activity, will effectively force private hospitals to treat some NHS patients for free. 

The proposed 2025-26 payment scheme says integrated care boards will set a ‘payment limit’ for elective services, ‘above which [value] the commissioner is not required to make further payments’ to providers. 

However, it also says the limits do ‘not cut across patient choice rules, as providers would continue to be obliged to accept referrals and to offer patients choice on where they get their treatment’. 

Private sector leaders told HSJ it effectively meant they could have to treat patients who choose them for free if their cap is reached.  

Delayed hospital rebuilds may never happen, trusts fear 

Planned hospital rebuilds have been pushed so far into the future that NHS insiders believe they may never happen despite the government insisting all projects will be completed. 

Building will not start for another ten years - at the earliest - for some trusts, including Imperial College Healthcare Trust and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust. Others, such as Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, must wait at least seven years. 

A programme director at one trust said the only building projects that were guaranteed were those within the current parliamentary term, likely to run to 2028, and where funding has already been identified. “If you’re after that, there is very little certainty of what will happen when,” they said. 

Another source at a different provider said there was a ‘strong chance’ the delays have ‘killed the scheme’. 

NHS England told to re-run or scrap contract award after string of errors 

NHS England North West (NHSE NW) made several errors in contracting a private provider to run health and justice services in Lancashire and Cumbria, regulators have found. 

The Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel has recommended NHSE NW either re-run the award or scrap it entirely after finding the commissioner breached procurement rules. 

The IPCPP was asked by Lancashire and South Cumbria Foundation Trust (LSCFT) to advise on NHSE NW’s appointment of Practice Plus Group Health and Rehabilitation Service to run services providing support to vulnerable people with complex health needs before and after they come into contact with the criminal justice system. 

The services are currently run by LSCFT, whose contract is set to expire at the end of March this year, prompting NHSE NW to issue a tender notice in April 2024.

New parliamentary private secretaries in Department of Health and Social Care 

Two new parliamentary private secretaries have been announced for DHSC, with Labour MPs Joe Morris and Deirdre Costigan stepping up to support ministers in the department. 

Both have been MPs since July 2024, with Morris representing Hexham and Costigan representing Ealing Southall. Costigan also serves on the Health and Social Care Select Committee. 

Cancer death rates 60 per cent higher in deprived areas, research finds 

Cancer death rates are 60 per cent higher for people living in the most deprived areas of the UK compared with those in more affluent areas, according to new analysis by Cancer Research UK. 

About one-in-ten of all cancer diagnoses in the UK are linked to deprivation, according to the charity’s report. 

It also revealed disparities with regard to cancer care, such as patients living in the most deprived areas of England being up to a third more likely to wait more than 104 days for treatment after an urgent referral, and over 50 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer through presenting symptoms as an emergency. 

The report said that smoking is the biggest cause of cancer in the UK, with rates in the poorest parts of the country at least triple those in the wealthiest. 

'Life-changing' gene therapy for children born blind 

An experimental trial of gene therapy has helped four toddlers – born with one of the most severe forms of childhood blindness – gain ‘life-changing improvements’ to their sight, according to doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. 

The rare genetic condition means the babies' vision deteriorated very rapidly from birth. 

Before the therapy, they were registered legally blind and only just able to distinguish between dark and light. After the infusion, all parents reported improvements - with some of their young children now able to begin to draw and write. 

Further work is being done to confirm the early study.