Richard Exell
NHS trusts are denying operations to up to one in eight of all patients referred by GPs. Pulse magazine reports on the rise of “total referral management”, a variety of cost control measures, sometimes involving “referrence management centres”, some operated by private companies. Four in five primary care organisations now operate a referral gateway of some sort and a growing list of procedureshave to be authorised in this way.
Scarlet Harris
Liverpool Council has announced 100% funding cuts to Rape Crisis. Liverpool Rape Crisis helped 522 women last year with a meagre £60,000 funding from Liverpool City Council.
To put this in perspective, the public funding received by Liverpool Rape Crisis in 2010 was less than the cost to the state of just one single rape. According to the Women’s Resource Centre, the estimated cost to the state of one rape is £73,487 – £13,487 more than the annual funding for the Liverpool Rape Crisis centre.
Richard Exell
The proportion of people visiting hospital accident and emergency departments who had to wait over four hours rose substantially in the last quarter of 2010. For A & E departments generally, the proportion with long waits rose to 3.5 per cent from 2.2 per cent in the last quarter of 2009. For major A & E Departments the increase was even bigger, from 3.2 per cent to 5.3 per cent.
Richard Exell
Even before the cuts in real-terms funding that lie ahead, the NHS is already struggling. At the end of the year, NHS Direct was “strained to bursting point” as staff struggled to cope with their busiest day of the year. In hospital maternity units, staff shortages are compromising the safety of mothers and babies. Despite this, the Prime Minister has refused to confirm a promise to increase the number of midwives that he made in the run-up to the election.
Richard Exell
Respected voices have warned that the “efficiency savings” demanded by Andrew Lansley mean that “care will suffer”. At the same time an influential government committee has advised him that these savings will not be sufficient to hit his spending targets, and that deep cuts will be necessary in social care and cancer research.
Richard Exell
Information from the House of Commons Library obtained by John Healey confirms that the Spending Review did not spare the NHS: it was in fact cut by 0.5 per cent.
Richard Exell
New reports suggest that NHS cuts are going to hit hard. A survey by the Sunday Telegraph found that more than 30 hospitals have either closed maternity or casualty units since the election or plan to do so. And the Nursing Times today reports on a “bonfire of acute nursing posts” after analysing quality, innovation, productivity and prevention plans for more than 20 PCTs: most plan to make efficiency savings demanded by the government by cutting the use of hospital care – this will usually mean fewer nurses.
Richard Exell
A survey by Every Disabled Child Matters reveals that local authorities are already cutting services for disabled children and their parents including short breaks, play and leisure, education, transport, health, training and equipment. Close to Crisis: Frontline service cuts for disabled children is based on a survey of EDCM’s members over the summer, and it found that voluntary groups working with disabled children and their families are afraid that cuts next year will damage the services they rely on and some local authorities are already making cuts assuming that central government funding will no longer be available from next April.
Richard Exell
Health Minister Simon Burns has announced that the government will not go ahead with the previous government’s plans to make car parking free in English NHS hospitals. Car parking is free in Wales and Scotland, but the NHS in England raises £110 million a year from the charges – which average £1.09 an hour.
Richard Exell
NHS Direct, the helpline and website, seems to have been reprieved, but there are still unanswered question about the quality of the advice it will offer.
