The must-read stories and debate in health policy and leadership.
Delays and uncertainty over the government’s promised 40 “new hospitals” has dominated headlines over NHS capital funding in recent years.
But what has happened to more than 100 projects that were in the pipeline before this?
Less than half of £2.7bn allocated to schemes – ranging from more inpatient beds to new theatres and primary care hubs – in 2017 and 2018 has been received to date.
At least 10 schemes are confirmed to have been scrapped, while others have scaled back in scope.
More than 20 per cent of live schemes – including the largest, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust – still have not received any of their allocated funds.
Sarah Walter from NHS Confederation said the research highlighted the issues leaders were facing when trying to access capital funding, adding: “This is leading to a domino effect of wider backlog of issues which are not funded yet.”
Primary care by proxy
An acute trust chair has said its emergency department is effectively operating as a primary care service.
Hattie Llewelyn-Davies told HSJ that the district general hospital in The Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust in Harlow, Essex, had boosted the number of GPs onsite in a bid to manage this.
She cited a central town location and an under pressure local GP service for high accident and emergency attendances but low levels of admissions.
The trust describes its A&E as one of the busiest in the country compared to the size of its hospital. Its board papers show there were 10,300 attendances in February compared to an average of 9,500 across the country. Around half were seen within four hours, below the 70 per cent national mean.
Ms Llewelyn-Davies told HSJ: “We’ve done an awful lot of changes in the way we run out A&E and same day emergency care service to try and get the flow through working better…
“We have particular problems with the Princess Alexandra because we are right in the middle of Harlow. And we have a GP service and primary care service which is under massive pressure. We have very high levels of deprivation in Harlow.”
Also on hsj.co.uk today
In North by North West, Lawrence Dunhill says the latest chapter in The Christie Foundation Trust’s whistleblowing saga concluded last week, with the mainstream media finally covering the story. And in Comment, Sietske Tamminga says there is a need for more studies on interventions addressing work-related risk factors both at the individual and organisational level.
