Primary Care – Page 304
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News
Patients allowed to opt out of care records service
Patients will have the right to opt out of having their information shared through the NHS care records service, health minister Lord Warner told HSJ's Demystifying the National Programme for IT conference yesterday.Under the government implied consent model, those who do not opt out will be deemed to have given ...
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News
Hewitt calls for alcopops tax hike
Health secretary Patricia Hewitt has written to chancellor Gordon Brown asking for an increase in taxes on alcopops and other drinks favoured by teenagers to curb binge drinking.Earlier this month Ms Hewitt launched the 'Know Your Limits' campaign against excessive drinking in the under-25 age group. In June, the Information ...
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News
Government responds to report on ITCs
The government has published its response to the Commons health select committee's report on independent treatment centres.The committee's report criticised the role of ITCs and said their performance had been variable.In its response the Department of Health has promised to provide more information to patients on which to base their ...
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News
New pay-off packages to reflect length of service
New redundancy and retirement packages based on length of service rather than age have been agreed by the Department of Health.
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News
Inappropriate admissions: guidance to urge 12.5pc cut
The prime minister's delivery unit is taking a key role in shaping 'crisp' new guidance for primary care trusts to reduce inappropriate hospital admissions and save over £1.4bn a year.
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News
PbR 'fundamentally flawed' says coding chief
The current system of payment by results is 'fundamentally flawed and unacceptable' the head of the Professional Association of Clinical Coders warned last week.
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News
Call to scrap funding formula
The NHS funding formula is based on an untested scientific premise and should be scrapped, the chief economic advisor to the Department of Health was told last week.
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News
PCT to lose 90 posts in £29m cuts plan
A primary care trust has announced plans to cut up to 90 jobs in response to the Department of Health requirement to balance its books within one financial year.
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News
DoH publishes new smoking cessation figures
The Department of Health has published the latest quarterly statistics on access to smoking cessation services. It shows Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire strategic health authority had the highest proportion of successful quitters (63 per cent) while Cheshire and Merseyside SHA reported the lowest (41 per cent). ...
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News
Efficiency savings costed at £2.2bn
The Department of Health is to expand the number of productivity indicators on which trusts are compared as the first set of figures revealed the NHS could save £2.2bn a year if it improved its efficiency.
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HSJ Knowledge
Legal Briefing: resolving payment disputes between PCTs and foundation trusts
As the NHS becomes accustomed to the legally-binding contracts between primary care trusts and foundation trusts, the main pressure points are beginning to emerge.
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Comment
Efficiency indicators do not tell the story behind the numbers
The comprehensive spending review is no longer the distant event it once seemed - the coming financial squeeze makes a numbers game out of the next 18 months or so.
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Comment
An online service tailored to your needs
This week, HSJgets personal. Today we have launched a new online service free to registered users of the website, designed to bring you the most relevant content direct to your desktop.
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News
Warner: PCT consultations 'pretty inept'
Primary care trusts have been criticised by government ministers and opposition MPs for sparking public protests by their handling of reconfigurations.
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News
News analysis: time to give PECs the muscle to make a real difference
Professional executive committees have been weighed down by corporate affairs and unable to influence strategy and clinical design, so the DoH's decision to review them has been widely welcomed. But what will the new PECs look like? Daloni Carlisle finds out
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News
Community petitions: threshold options revealed in DoH paper
Details of the way 'community petitions' could be used to trigger formal service reviews have been revealed in a Department of Health paper.
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HSJ Knowledge
Major research initiative launched for policy makers and managers
The Health Foundation's five-year, £2.5m QQUIP research initiative to help healthcare policy makers, managers, clinicians, researchers and patient groups to better understand and make informed decisions about how to improve healthcare quality will go online next month.
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HSJ Knowledge
Research shows how patient involvement can improve healthcare quality
Involve the patient for better health outcomes and efficiency. That's the strategy suggested by new research from the Health Foundation.
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HSJ Knowledge
Identifying 'ghost' patients in residential and nursing homes
There are plenty of methodologies for systematically validating list of patients registered with primary care trusts to identify 'ghost' patients - those who no longer live at their recorded address or do not exist.
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News
West Midlands chiefs named
HSJ introduces eight new primary care trust chief executives appointed by NHS West Midlands