Quality and safety news - 8 November 2012

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News highlights are:

BBC Health: Liverpool Care Pathway: Relatives 'must be informed'. Relatives of terminally-ill patients would have to be consulted before a decision to withdraw food or water is taken, under new government proposals. It comes after some patients were placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway - designed to relieve suffering - without their relatives' knowledge.

British Medical Association (BMA): Government set to push ahead with personal health budgets. “The government looks set to push ahead with the implementation of personal health budgets in spite of widespread doubts or ignorance about the initiative among doctors.”

Cabinet Office: Red Tape Challenge – healthy living and social care. This Red Tape Challenge is live for five weeks until 11 December. It covers over 500 regulations relating to public health, quality of care/mental health, the NHS and professional standards and asks for comments on which of these regulations “should be scrapped or improved to boost growth and jobs and give health professionals more time to care for patients, without weakening necessary public health safeguards.”

Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE): NHS Board standards. Standards for board members and members of Clinical Commissioning Group governing bodies in the NHS in England. The Standards, which apply to NHS England, cover three domains: personal behaviour, technical competence, and business practices, and put compassion and respect at the heart of NHS leadership. 
DH: Respect and compassion at centre of new standards for leaders. 

DH: Views sought on strengthening NHS Constitution. Proposals to strengthen the NHS Constitution have been set out for public consultation, and the NHS, patients and public are all being asked to respond. The main changes proposed cover: a new responsibility for staff to treat patients not only with the highest standards of care, but also with compassion, dignity and respect; a new pledge making it explicit that patients can expect to sleep in single-sex wards; a new pledge to patients that NHS staff must be open and honest with them if things go wrong or mistakes happen – this ‘duty of candour’ will become a condition in the NHS Standard Contract from April 2013. The consultation closes on 28 January 2013.

DH: Protecting patients’ interests – ensuring continuity of NHS services: a consultation on proposals for a health special administration procedure for companies. The health special administration consultation sets out how safeguards to protect the services that patients need will be extended to NHS services provided by social enterprises and other companies. For the first time, the services provided by these organisations will be secured if they become insolvent. This will ensure that, regardless of the type of provider, patients will receive an uninterrupted service they can rely on. The consultation closes on 4 January 2013.

DH: Delivering major improvements in dementia care and research by 2015. A progress report published today gives an update on the first 7 months of the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge. It outlines the aims, achievements and ambitions of the challenge’s 3 champion groups.
Government announces next steps on Dementia Challenge.
RCN: Government must invest in dementia services.  
BBC Health: Million ‘dementia friends’ wanted for training. The government wants to train a million people in England by 2015 to become "dementia friends", able to spot signs of the illness and help sufferers. 

DH: Plans set out to prepare NHS for winter. Plans have been set out to help people keep well this winter and help the NHS prepare for winter and meet the increase in winter-related health problems always seen at this time of year. It is supported by a Met Office cold weather alert service that starts on 1 November and runs until the end of March 2013. The Department of Health’s measures also include a flu vaccination advertising campaign to encourage people in at-risk groups to get vaccinated.
DH: Cold Weather Plan for England 2012 published.

DH: Health Secretary announces funding for care homes and wards specially designed for people with dementia. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced dedicated funding of up to £50 million to create care environments for people with dementia that help reduce anxiety and distress, and help people feel safe. 
RCN: RCN welcomes dementia funding.

DH: Fund to create and modernise homes for independent living. The Department of Health today opened a £300 million fund to provide new and modernised homes designed to meet the needs of older people and people with disabilities. Local authorities will be able to bid for money from the fund to build specially designed new homes and to modernise existing specialised housing to bring it up to standard. 

Guardian: GP commissioner survey finds support for increased competition. "Almost nine in 10 likely to ban or limit some treatments and 50% likely to make greater use of alternative providers."

Health in Wales: Increasing investment in GP services in Wales. The Welsh Government has offered GPs in Wales a 1.5 per cent increase in investment in general practice while calling for changes to the GP contract to support improvements to patient services.

House of Commons Public Accounts Committee: Seventeenth report: Department of Health: The management of adult diabetes services in the NHS. The report concludes that since the publication of the National Service Framework for Diabetes in 2001 the improvements in diabetes services have not been as great as expected given that the Department of Health set out clear and clinically agreed standards. Variation in the level of progress across the NHS also means that there is an unacceptable "postcode lottery" of care, whereby the quality of diabetes care varies dramatically across the NHS.
Press release: The management of adult diabetes services in the NHS.
BBC Health: Diabetes care depressingly poor, say MPs. 

House of Commons Public Accounts Committee: Sixteenth report: Department of Health: Securing the future financial sustainability of the NHS. “In 2011-12 NHS organisations in England reported a combined overall surplus of £2.1 billion. There were, however, significant variations in performance between NHS bodies. 377 NHS organisations reported a surplus in the year, but 10 NHS trusts, 21 NHS foundation trusts and three Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) reported a combined deficit of £356 million.” 
RCN: Public will be shocked by NHS finances.

National Audit Office (NAO): The franchising of Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust. The National Audit Office has found that while the first private company to be awarded a franchise to run an NHS hospital has made early improvements in some clinical areas, a number of financial challenges remain. Circle is the first private company to assume the management functions of an NHS Trust. This report examines how the NHS East of England Strategic Health Authority designed, initiated and managed the project to franchise Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust, and highlights early lessons that can be learnt from the procurement process and creation of the franchise agreement.
BBC Health: NHS 'must be tougher negotiator' on private deals.

NHS Commissioning Board: NHS and local government chiefs pledge better integration of health and social care. The NHS Commissioning Board and Local Government Association have formally agreed to work together towards better integration of health and social care. At their joint conference Commissioning for Integrated Health and Care in London on 29 October, the chairs and chief executives of the NHS CB and the LGA pledged commitment to their common purposes of meeting the needs and aspirations of their local communities.

NICE: Consistent food labelling system set for 2013. A consistent system of front-of-pack food labelling will be introduced in the UK next year, as the government attempts to curb growing rates of obesity. The proposed system - a combination of guideline daily amounts (GDA), colour coding and high/medium/low text is intended to make it easier for consumers to make healthier choices about the food they eat. 

RCN: DH returning money is “almost unbelievable”. The Royal College of Nursing has said the news that the Department of Health has returned nearly £3 billion of its funding to the Treasury over the past two years is a “bitter pill to swallow”. Dr Peter Carter, RCN Chief Executive & General Secretary, said: “It is almost unbelievable that at a time when more than 61,000 posts are being stripped out of the NHS, billions of pounds of unspent money is going to the Treasury. On a daily basis, nurses are telling us that they do not have enough staff to deliver good quality care.”

Welsh Government: NHS Wales Chief Executive’s annual report 2011/12. Improvements highlighted in the report include orthopaedic waiting times, treatment of strokes, treatment of long-term conditions and in unscheduled care.