News – Page 1721

  • News

    Top-ups: experts divided over health's thorniest issue

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Should patients be allowed to top up their care by paying privately for drugs? The question has confounded experts and now the government has an unenviable task in making a final decision. Helen Crump reports

  • News

    Bill Moyes keen to see teaching foundations

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Monitor executive chair Bill Moyes is urging more teaching hospitals to become foundation trusts in 2009.

  • News

    Drug addiction services hit by unrealistic targets

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Unrealistic targets to get more drug addicts into treatment are causing the quality of services to plummet, psychiatrists are warning.

  • News

    NHS North East publishes workforce plans

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    The first major regional workforce proposals published since the next stage review appear to confirm the strong role given to strategic health authorities.NHS North East is creating a new regional-level organisation called NHS Education North East.

  • News

    Doctors' memory sticks threaten data security

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Hospital doctors are carrying 'hundreds of thousands of kilobytes' of sensitive and identifiable patient information around on memory sticks with no security protection, a survey has found.

  • News

    £1.75bn NHS surplus predicted

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    The NHS is set to finish this financial year with a £1.75bn surplus. The projection, based on estimates from the three months since April, is equivalent to just over 2 per cent of NHS revenue funding this year.

  • News

    Fujitsu may bring £700m action over IT deal

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    The Department of Health has refused to comment on reports that former national IT programme contractor Fujitsu is considering suing over the business it lost when its contract was terminated in March.

  • News

    Cervical cancer immunisation plans may exclude Muslim girls

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Muslim girls will be excluded from a national vaccination scheme against cervical cancer because it clashes with the holy month of Ramadan, religious leaders are warning.

  • News

    Top-up payment review highlights NHS bodies' worries

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Responses to the review of co-payments have revealed the extent of uncertainty about the way forward for the NHS on top-ups.

  • News

    PFI plan could keep debts off NHS trusts' balance sheets

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    NHS trusts may hand their private finance initiative hospitals over to specially created charities to avoid reporting PFI debts on their balance sheets, HSJ has learned.The controversial plans would involve trusts ceding control of the hospitals to a third party.

  • News

    Hull trust buys Nuffield hospital to save money

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Hulland East Yorkshire Hospitals trust has bought a private Nuffield hospital to avoid contracting out services to the independent sector.

  • News

    Conservatives plan to step up councils' role in health

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Public health directors would have to report to local authorities under plans announced by the shadow health secretary last week.

  • News

    Putting the patient at the centre

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Personal budgets are nothing more complicated than being clear with people from the outset about how much money is available to meet their level of need and allowing them greater choice over how it is spent.

  • News

    Pricing tariffs would reduce coding errors

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    A simple device could improve clinical coding and costing at a stroke: all providers should put the cost of the patient episode (provisional if necessary) with the clinical discharge summary letter to the GP as the patient leaves hospital.

  • News

    Audit sample 'was misleading'

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Your point that up to £1bn of bills sent by trusts to primary care trusts could be incorrect is misleading.

  • News

    Carbon strategy proposes tough target

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    The draft carbon reduction strategy for the NHS in England proposes a more stringent carbon target than the one mentioned in your article: zero-carbon hospitals by 2018.

  • News

    London polyclinics to use 'federated' model

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    None of London's first wave of controversial polyclinics will deliver all its services from a single new standalone building.

  • News

    PCTs press for south London hospitals shake-up

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Primary care trusts have warned that delaying the proposed reconfiguration of hospitals in south east London could push services to breaking point.

  • News

    Accountancy firms win PCT board roles

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    Three of the 'big four' accountancy firms have been selected to improve primary care trust boards' skills.KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young are all leading consortiums that have made successful bids to be on the Department of Health's new PCT board development framework.

  • News

    Enhancing service requires proper funding

    2008-09-04T09:00:00Z

    I must respond to Sophia Christie's column. The days of the GP doing an ever-expanding range of tasks for the same money are gone. Movement from secondary to primary care must be accompanied by altered funding flows.