NHS

Emergency doctors hit out at NHS guidance on treating patients in corridors

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/emergency-doctors-hit-out-nhs-guidance-treating-patients-corridors

A support worker stands in a corridor as the first patients are admitted to the NHS Seacole Centre at Headley Court, Surrey, May 2020

EMERGENCY doctors have expressed concern today about a new guide on how to treat patients in corridors, saying it is “normalising the dangerous.”

NHS England recently produced guidance on “providing safe and good quality care in temporary escalation spaces.”

But the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said the “nonsensical” guidance is out of touch and that it is “not possible to provide safe and good quality care” in corridors or cupboards.

The guidance acknowledges corridor care is “not acceptable and should not be considered as standard,” but due to current pressures some hospitals are “using temporary escalation spaces more regularly — and this use is no longer ‘in extremis’.”

It suggests how staff can deliver the “safest, most effective and highest quality care possible” to patients in these circumstances.

In a statement yesterday, the college said: “Advice from arm’s length bodies that appear out of touch with what is happening in our departments was always going to be poorly received.”

The use of corridors will lead to long waits in emergency departments, “associated with measurable harm to patients,” it added.

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Teachers and NHS workers’ unions ‘put the government on notice’ over below-inflation pay rises

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/teachers-and-nhs-workers-unions-put-the-government-on-notice-over-below-inflation-pay-rises

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) chief executive Pat Cullen (second right front row) joins members of the RCN on the picket line outside the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, as nurses take industrial action over pay, January 18, 2023

TEACHER and NHS worker unions threatened strike action today over government-backed below-inflation public-sector pay rises.

The Department of Health and Social Care, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education have recommended 2.8 per cent unfunded rises for 2025-26 to pay review bodies after Chancellor Rachel Reeves ordered all departments to cut costs by 5 per cent.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “There are real concerns across the trade union movement about the government’s recommendation.

“The government must now engage unions and the millions of public-sector workers we represent in a serious conversation about public service reform and delivery.

“It’s hard to see how you address the crisis in our services without meaningful pay rises.

“And it’s hard to see how services cut to the bone by 14 years of Tory government will find significant cash savings.

“In the longer term, we need a spending review that gives hope to those delivering and relying on our public services.”

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/teachers-and-nhs-workers-unions-put-the-government-on-notice-over-below-inflation-pay-rises

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Continue ReadingTeachers and NHS workers’ unions ‘put the government on notice’ over below-inflation pay rises

Morning Star Exclusive: Streeting urged to back New Deal for Workers and block £100m NHS privatisation bid

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-urged-back-new-deal-workers-nhs-staff-strike-over-ps100m-plus-outsourcing-bid

Health Secretary Wes Streeting arrives in Downing Street, London, for a Cabinet meeting, December 3, 2024

HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting has been urged to honour the New Deal for Working People after failing to back a Unison NHS strike over a £100 million-plus privatisation plan.

More than 350 facilities workers are on a three-week walkout over East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT’s) plans to outsource their jobs.

Large NHS contracts such as this need Cabinet Office approval but Mr Streeting has said he will not intervene in the trust’s outsourcing bid despite Labour’s promise for the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation, a union source said.

His stance has attracted criticism from Labour MPs, Unison and NHS campaigners, with ESNEFT’s board of directors expected to rubber-stamp the outsourcing of their soft facilities management contract tomorrow.

Eastern Unison head of health Caroline Hennessy said: “Moving these essential teams out of the NHS is a false economy and goes against government pledges on insourcing.

“The trust has spent months trying to justify its ill-thought-out plans to privatise the jobs of these key staff and has failed to win any of the arguments.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-urged-back-new-deal-workers-nhs-staff-strike-over-ps100m-plus-outsourcing-bid

Continue ReadingMorning Star Exclusive: Streeting urged to back New Deal for Workers and block £100m NHS privatisation bid

NHS bosses reportedly worried about Starmer’s pledge to cut waiting lists

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/02/cut-nhs-waiting-lists-keir-starmer

Keir Starmer and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who has promised an extra £22bn to help cut NHS waiting times, at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire on 31 October. Photograph: Darren Staples/AP

NHS bosses are said to be privately concerned about Keir Starmer’s ambitious targets to cut waiting lists for routine operations, set to be announced later this week, which will also include specific targets on living standards and housebuilding.

The prime minister is expected on Thursday to set a target for 92% of routine operations and appointments in England to be carried out within 18 weeks by March 2029 – a goal that has not been achieved in almost a decade – the Times has reported.

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Most NHS trust bosses doubt the health service can restore key waiting times by 2029. A recent survey by the hospitals body NHS Providers found that 71% of the leaders overall, and 100% of those who run acute and ambulance trusts, thought it unlikely that they could make such progress that quickly.

The Society for Acute Medicine (SAM), which represents hospital doctors, said Starmer’s desire for a return to 92% of patients waiting a maximum of 18 weeks, four months before the end of this parliament, was “doomed” unless overstretched NHS urgent and emergency care services, such as A&E and ambulance services, were dramatically improved.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/02/cut-nhs-waiting-lists-keir-starmer

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Plans to end NHS dental care crisis not working, warns spending watchdog

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/27/plans-to-end-nhs-dental-care-crisis-not-working-warns-spending-watchdog

A plan to provide ‘golden hellos’ to new dentists in specific regions has been found to have failed. Photograph: Andrew Fosker/Alamy

National Audit Office finds ‘significant uncertainty’ as to whether pledge for extra 1.5m treatments will be fulfilled

Plans to end the deepening crisis in access to NHS dental care are failing, leaving patients unable to get treatment, according to a warning from the government’s spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office’s (NAO) damning verdict on the “dental recovery plan” prompted patient groups to voice alarm that people’s struggles with decayed teeth represents “a serious public health concern”.

A pledge to provide an extra 1.5m treatments in England this year is in disarray amid falls in both the number of dentists doing NHS work and people receiving help from them.

There is “significant uncertainty” as to whether that ambition will be fulfilled because two key elements of the plan have not been achieved, an NAO investigation found. None of the promised new fleet of mobile dental vans has appeared and £20,000 “golden hellos”, to entice 240 dentists to work in areas of acute shortage, have only produced one extra dentist.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/27/plans-to-end-nhs-dental-care-crisis-not-working-warns-spending-watchdog

Continue ReadingPlans to end NHS dental care crisis not working, warns spending watchdog