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Nurses to spend time as health care assistants, ministers to say Nurses will have to spend time as healthcare assistants, helping patients eat, wash and get dressed as part of measures to be unveiled by ministers in response to the Stafford hospital inquiry. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is expected to announce the move today when he sets out the government’s response to the Robert Francis QC’s report. Ministers believe placing student nurses on wards as healthcare assistants for up to a year will help them develop the caring skills required, before going on to do a degree. New minimum training standards and a code of conduct for health care assistants is also likely to be unveiled, although this looks like it will fall short of the registration scheme recommended by the public inquiry. The Guardian speculates that the RCN may not welcome new nurses having to perform tasks usually done by colleagues who are less well-trained and not strictly part of the clinical workforce, either before or during their training. Dr Peter Carter was interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme saying: “We have concerns about this. Robert Francis made it very clear that the failings at Mid Staffordshire were at a Board and managerial level. We also have real concerns about who will pay for tens of thousands of new health care assistants”.
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The Daily Mirror reports that a move to make 5,500 hospital staff redundant unless they signed cut-price contracts has been scrapped after a furore. North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust issued notice of the plan to its entire workforce and defended the move saying it needed to make millions in savings. Bosses have now agreed to comply with the new national terms and conditions. RCN Regional Director Glenn Turp, is quoted in the Mirror as saying: "It is a shame so much staff and managerial time, resources and NHS money was wasted on this futile pursuit. There is a very important lesson here for other NHS employers who may be tempted to break away from national terms and conditions”. P.26
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The £20billion efficiency savings in the NHS ordered by its chief executive Sir David Nicholson could lead to another care scandal such as that at Mid Staffs, according to a report out today by the Commons Public Accounts Committee. The health service must make the cuts in the four years to, 2015, but the Commons Public Account Committee is concerned that many financially troubled trusts are simply cost-cutting rather than finding “genuine efficiency savings”. The report shows that organisations are achieving savings by limiting access to treatments such as cataract surgery and hip and knee replacements. Dr Peter Carter is quoted in Telegraph saying: “Not only are certain treatments being rationed, we are also concerned that nursing care itself is starting to be rationed. The NHS has to be financially healthy, but this won’t be achieved in the long term if trusts are living on the edge, either financially or in terms of care”. P 22 NHS hospital Ofsted-style performance rating system not practical, says study
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Newspapers today report on yesterday’s Budget announcement. Chancellor George Osborne announced that a 1% pay rise cap for public sector workers will be extended for an extra year to 2015-16. George Osborne said that salaries of NHS staff, council workers and civil servants will remain at below inflation levels until at least 2016. The Chancellor also announced plans to seek "significant" savings through reforming the system of annual rises through pay progression in the public sector. He said such automatic pay rises were difficult to justify given that millions of private sector workers had seen their wages frozen or cut. The proposal has met with angry reactions from unions. Other proposals in the budget include; a planned rise for all alcohol duty, with the exception of beer and beer duty is being cut by 1p. Majority of government departments face cuts of 1% for each of the next two years, but schools and NHS will be protected. A cap on social care costs to come in during 2017 will protect savings above £72,000. Tax free childcare vouchers worth £1,200 per child are to be introduced, along with increased support for families with children on universal credit.
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The Daily Telegraph reports that Sir David Nicholson faced further calls to resign after it emerged he misled Parliament over how he dealt with a whistleblower. On Monday he told the public accounts committee that Gary Walker, who was sacked from his post as head of United Lincolnshire NHS Trust in February 2010, had not identified himself as a whistleblower and did not raise concerns over patient safety in a letter to Sir David. In the evidence to the health select committee, Mr Walker produced the letter itself and called on Sir David to explain himself. Sir David wrote yesterday to Margaret Hodge MP, the chairman of the public accounts committee to “correct one specific point of detail”.
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