Latest news – Page 2570

  • News

    Deprived areas hit by underspending

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Some of the most deprived areas outside London are spending well below the money nominally allocated for mental health services, according to a national survey by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry.

  • News

    MP who was 'champion of the underdog'dies

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Veteran Labour MP Audrey Wise, a long-standing member of the Commons health select committee, has died aged 65.

  • News

    Needlestick injuries on the increase

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Unison has called for the number of healthcare workers exposed to viruses such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV as a result of needlestick injuries to be monitored as part of its campaign for a ban on 'old-fashioned, unsafe needles' and the introduction of retractable needles or needles with ...

  • News

    Deficit increased at Bart's as a result of directive

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Implementing the EU working-time directive has added £1.6m to the income and expenditure deficit of Barts and the London trust, according to a report to its board. The trust had an income and expenditure deficit of £2.98m at the end of 1999-2000 and all but one clinical directorate were overspent. ...

  • News

    Discretionary points scheme to end with buy-out

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Glasgow Primary Care trust is to 'buy out' nurses with a one-off, £500 payment to end the discretionary points scheme.

  • News

    Emergency calls increased and service improved

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Scottish Ambulance Service has reported another rise in demand. Its annual report shows it responded to 495,248 emergency calls last year, an increase of 8,709 on the previous year. Air ambulance demand increased by almost 8 per cent to 2,645 missions and the service also dealt with 2.3 million non-emergency ...

  • News

    Livingstone knocks lack of social housing at key site

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    London mayor Ken Livingstone has criticised a landmark development for failing to provide social housing. Mr Livingstone 'deplored' plans for the redevelopment of Battersea power station, which include 657 new flats. Last week, average house prices in London hit £200,000, and Mr Livingstone said the decision not to include social ...

  • News

    Not just acute idea

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    The private finance initiative's sphere of influence is spreading far beyond the acute hospitals of the first wave - a trend further boosted by the NHS plan. Seamus Ward reports

  • News

    Ahead of the game

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Most of the large, acute private finance schemes have been driven by the need to rationalise disparate units on to one site. Leeds Community and Mental Health trust is using PFI to do the opposite - the trust needs a range of accommodation on sites scattered around the city.

  • News

    Joined-up thinking

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Most projects that aspire to pioneer status are happy to put forward one element of the new building as proof they are breaking the mould. However, a £3.8m scheme at Sedgley in the West Midlands claims no less than three ground-breaking developments.

  • News

    Take your partners

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    All over the country trusts are forming 30-year relationships with PFI partners - but the average marriage doesn't last this long. How can you be sure which consortium is: a) Right for you? b) Means what it says? c) Will stay faithful? Use John Kelly's ha

  • News

    Grin and bear it?

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Graffiti is already daubed on the otherwise pristine walls of the children's ward in the brand new Cumberland Infirmary. 'Tony Blair was here, 16 June 2000, ' reads the scrawl. He really ought to know better at his age. But perhaps he was incited to autograph the wall by the ...

  • News

    What the staff and patients think

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Willie Reid (left), medical director, says the task has now changed from trying to convince clinicians that the PFI project would come to fruition, to trying to persuade them that the 30-year deal will work. The hospital is 'light years ahead of what we had before', he says. He is ...

  • News

    What the new hospital offers

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    The entrance to the new Cumberland Infirmary is bathed in light from a huge, etched glass panel above the doorway and from the transparent roof which stretches over the entire walkway, leading past day surgery, outpatients, A&E and the X-ray department. The bright and airy walkway is the 'backbone' of ...

  • News

    The long march towards a PFI

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    1975 A plan to build a single-site hospital is conceived. For years the plan is shelved as health chiefs' hopes are repeatedly dashed.

  • News

    The name's Bond

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    You might prefer to leave management of the PFI investment to the advisers, but, as Paul Whittlestone explains, a basic grasp of corporate finance could be handy

  • News

    A bluffer's guide to project finance

    2000-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Bonds An alternative to bank finance which, depending on market conditions and the risks associated with a project, may be cheaper, if less flexible.

  • News

    Government gives go-ahead on 'Diane Blood' cases

    2000-08-31T00:00:00Z

    The government has decided to allow a father's name to be recorded on a child's birth certificate when his sperm has been used after his death and to allow changes to be made retrospectively. This will allow Diane Blood, who fought for the right to use her dead husband's sperm ...

  • News

    Specialists call for extra cash to remedy geriatric care's 'failings'

    2000-08-31T00:00:00Z

    Geriatric care specialists called yesterday for NHS funding for care homes to be doubled to tackle 'haphazard' services.

  • News

    Beta interferon appeals flood in

    2000-08-31T00:00:00Z

    The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has received eight appeals against its decision on the use of beta interferon in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.