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The special measures regime, used for most challenged NHS trusts, has not officially existed since last year, when it was replaced by what is known in NHS-speak as segment four of the system oversight framework.

This is not a place trusts want to be in, as it relates to “very serious, complex issues” that require “intensive support” from NHS head office.

Despite the terminology change, “special measures” is a term commonly used across the health service and understood by the general public. But it comes with its costs: Peter Reading, the chief executive officer of a trust that is hopeful of promotion after five years in various iterations of intensive support, has told HSJ the label “hurts people”.

He said: “It doesn’t help morale and there’s no question about it, if you give people a bad name, even when they’re actually delivering generally very good care, and they’re working their socks off, and the label does not help.”

The trust will be waiting with bated breath to find out if it has met the requirements: NHS England declined to confirm the change, instead saying it would review current arrangements in the weeks ahead.

Pension proposals fail to placate

A senior British Medical Association leader described yesterday’s government announcement on pension proposals as “too little, too late”.

No direct changes to either annual or lifetime allowance were revealed, despite these issues having previously been blamed for forcing clinicians to quit the NHS. 

The Department of Health and Social Care is due to launch a consultation on changes to the NHS pension scheme. This covers a number of changes trailed by Therese Coffey, the previous health and social care secretary, in September.

The DHSC also promises to grant “staff in primary care networks, such as GPs and staff in GP practices, access to the NHS pension scheme”.

Vishal Sharma, the BMA’s pensions committee chair, said “The partial retirement option and greater flexibility for recently retired doctors returning to the workforce have potential benefits and in particular will standardise retire and return arrangements – something the BMA has lobbied for. However, this does not directly address the issues caused by the annual or lifetime allowance.

“These are not just issues for doctors nearing retirement, but they are also increasingly influencing the decisions of mid-career consultants and GPs, for whom partial retirement would not be an option. These doctors will still have to consider reducing the work they do to prevent incurring large punitive tax bills and it is disingenuous of the government to suggest that this will make any meaningful difference to the huge backlogs in care we are seeing.”

Also on hsj.co.uk today

In The Primer, our weekly look at health stories across the media, we survey coverage of the potential lack of cover in emergency departments and cancer services during the nursing strikes. And in North by North West, Lawrence Dunhill says hospitals in the region are set to face renewed pressure to deal with ambulance handover delays.