All Finance articles – Page 459
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News
Prescription costs to rise
Prescription charges will increase by 25p from 1 April, public health minister Dawn Primarolo has announced.The increase, which the department stressed is below the rate of inflation, will take the cost of a single prescription item to £7.10.
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News
Credit crunch puts Kent PFI under threat
Plans by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust for a new private finance initiative hospital were dealt a blow this week when the bonds intended to finance the deal were downgraded.
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News
Surplus forecast by HSJ still on course
The NHS is still on track to make a £1.8bn surplus at the end of this financial year, as first revealed by HSJ.
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Comment
Noel Plumridge on topping up NHS care
It is a long time since NHS care was unequivocally free. Over half a century ago, in the final days of a post-war Labour government that was proud to nationalise not just healthcare but the 'commanding heights' of the British economy - coal, steel, the railways - a certain outspoken ...
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News
PCTs cut continuing care packages
More than a quarter of primary care trusts have cut the number of adults they give NHS 'continuing care', despite guidance intended to boost provision.Figures published by the Department of Health show 44 PCTs reduced the number of people to whom they give the care package between April and December ...
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Comment
Michael White on health budgets
Opposition spokesmen as energetic as Andrew Lansley tend to respond to breaking news rather than to make it. It's the curse of opposition. When they're in the headlines it's usually bad news. The Tory health spokesman has been making headlines.
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Comment
Premises buy-back is yet more ammo for anti-private brigade
Our revelation this week that the government made deals with the providers of the independent sector treatment centres to buy back their premises is another blow to a controversial policy. According to a document unearthed in the House of Commons library, the bill could reach £187m.
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News
Free parking in Wales will cost trusts £5.4m
Hospital trusts in Wales will lose up to £5.4m per year because the Welsh Assembly government has told them they must stop raising income from car parking.
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News
ISTC contract guarantees will saddle NHS with a £187m bill
Deals with private contractors have left the NHS facing a hidden 187m bill to buy back some of the controversial independent sector treatment centres, HSJ has learned.
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News
Diabetes nurses could save £100m, study claims
Specialist diabetes nurses could save the NHS £100m by reducing the number of people admitted to hospital, a new study claims.
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News
Surplus forecast for NHS
Department of Health figures based on the first nine months of the financial year forecast an NHS surplus of £1.8bn.The gross deficit is expected to be reduced to £143m. Seventeen trusts remain in deficit, with the majority in balance.
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News
Wales to axe NHS parking charges
Most parking charges in NHS hospitals in Wales are to be eliminated for patients, staff and visitors, it is expected to be announced later today.
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News
Confed responds to NAO report
Commenting on yesterday's NAO report on the GP contract, NHS Confederation primary care trust network director David Stout said: 'The work of PCTs in world class commissioning recognises the need to make better use of contractual levers to improve the commissioning of general practice and develop a range of skills ...
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Comment
Simon Stevens on local pay and national prices
When doctors everywhere are being urged to become more evidence based in their clinical practice, a standard retort is that health policy makers should do the same.
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HSJ Knowledge
How to spend less while doing more
New national reference costs data shows that in 2006-07 the NHS in England spent less cash on inpatient, day case and emergency care than in 2005-06. Scroll down to view the charts at the end of the story.
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News
Monitor fights shy of legal tussles
Monitor will seek to avoid tightening the rules on income from private patients because it fears legal reprisals from foundation trusts, HSJ has learned.
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News
Tee calls for cash incentives
NHS Direct could be paid extra to focus on taking calls from patients living in deprived areas or with specific health needs, its chief executive Matt Tee has revealed.
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News
Scottish budgets reworked
Scottish health and well-being secretary Nicola Sturgeon has unveiled a new funding formula that will see substantial redistribution of funds between health boards.
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News
Eleventh-hour changes to GP contract left PCTs with bill
The introduction of the new GP contract led to a 57 per cent increase in payments to practices in just three years, the National Audit Office has found. The huge increase was fuelled by a last-minute concession to the British Medical Association that sidelined the government's own priority to tackle ...
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News
Trust reveals price of advice on chief's payout
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust has revealed it spent nearly £23,000 on legal advice over the severance payment to its former chief executive Rose Gibb.