How a new role is integrating clinical research and care, plus the rest of today’s news and comment
17.01pm: The Hospital Caterers Association has responded to the criticism expressed in this story earlier today.
Chair Andy Jones said: “Despite views to the contrary, hospital caterers are extremely concerned about providing meals that are wholesome and nutritious and suitable to meet the dietary needs and choice of all of their patients. They see food as being as integral to patient care as medicine or treatment, they are well aware of the contribution good food makes to patient recovery. ”
13.08pm: The HSJ’s Shaun Lintern reveals that the CQC staff who saw “unacceptable behaviour” at Whipps Cross Hospital didn’t refer any staff to the professional regulators.
The CQC instead expressed their concerns to Barts Health Trust, which runs the hospital.
12.49pm: The Department of Health yesterday announced a £30m deal to buy 20 new radiotherapy machines.
The DH’s statement said: “The machines are capable of delivering both standard radiotherapy and Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, which is a particularly important form of treatment for head and neck cancers because it can be used to target the tumour more precisely.”
10.55am: The CQC have announced the “regional listening dates” for the first four trusts to be investigated under Sir Mike Richards new inspection regime. The four events were announced for hospital trusts in Airedale in Yorkshire, Wolverhampton, Taunton in Somerset and Croydon in south London.
The CQC announced earlier this year that 18 trusts would be inspected, six from the higher risk category, six from the lowest and six from a “variety of points in-between”.
10.53am: Professor Hilary Thomas, a partner in KPMG’s healthcare advisory service, has written a piece for the Guardian’s healthcare professionals network outlining a new report by the consultants on shaking up care provision for long term conditions.
10.19am: A Department of Health report said better support for carers who also work could save taxpayers £1.3bn.
The Supporting Working Carers Report is warning that as well as losing money, businesses risk losing valuable, experienced employees if action is not urgently taken to enable people with caring responsibilities to remain in work.
10.12am: Two stories from the Press Association, one that the NHS spent £1.4bn on redundancy payments in 2011-12, and two that NHS managers seem to have a different idea of the quality of the hospital food they provide to the CQC, who rate it signifcantly lower.
10.09am: The NHS is facing a “time bomb” of negligence payouts, the Daily Telegraph reports. The paper has spoken to Fletchers Solicitors which handles one in 15 medical negligence claims and is dealing with a 20 per cent increase in cases this year than next year.
9.44am: The Times reports that “people in England are needlessly losing more than a million years of life to preventable conditions every year, official figures show.”
The page four lead story was based on data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre that health secretary Jeremy Hunt called “shocking”.
It identified variations in the number of early and preventable deaths.
The paper quoted John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health saying: “We hear all the rhetoric of localism but this country continues to be one of the most centralised countries in Europe. Are they really going to return power to the local level so they can do something about it?”
9.25am: Good morning. Today on HSJ’s innovation and efficiency channel, Andrew Molodynski and Cate Anderson from the adult mental health team at Oxford University explain how a project in Oxfordshire has successfully integrated research into routine clinical care by creating new roles.
They say: “The pilot has shown that the creation of attractive posts for highly motivated individuals with unused skills significantly improves inter-agency and team functioning and, most importantly, improves patient care.”
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