The Patients Association said the move was a “damning condemnation” of care at the hospital. The United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust said patient safety was not affected as students only supported core staff.

‘Support students’

Fifty-two of the affected nurses are from courses run by the University of Nottingham, with another seven from the University of Lincoln and the rest from The Open University.

In a statement, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) said: “Following serious concerns that have formally been raised with the NMC, we have asked The University of Lincoln, The University of Nottingham and The Open University to withdraw around 100 nursing and midwifery students with immediate effect.

“We are working with the universities to review the suitability of the learning environment at Pilgrim Hospital and to support all students affected at this time.”

Sylvia Knight, director of nursing and patient services at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, said: “Although students form a valuable part of the nursing teams, they work in addition to our core staff, therefore our ability to deliver safe services for patients is not reliant on the presence of student nurses and midwives.

“At the present time, we are seeking further clarification from the NMC regarding the reason for their actions.”

‘Lack of care’

NHS East Midlands said: “We are now working closely with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, NHS Lincolnshire and the hospital itself to understand the concerns of the NMC that have led to them removing student nurses and midwives from the Pilgrim Hospital site.”

The chief executive of the Patients Association, Katherine Murphy, said: “How many times do we have to hear about the lack of essential care in this hospital before something is done?

“Patients deserve better – if this hospital is performing so badly that it is not thought suitable to train nurses then it is certainly not suitable to care for sick and vulnerable patients.

“What is the trust going to do about this?,” she said.

Last month the hospital was criticised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which said it had not met required standards in 12 of 16 categories.

‘Normal working relationship’

In a statement, the CQC said it had shared information about the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust with the NMC.

“This is part of our normal working relationship and the information had previously been shared with the trust.

“The CQC is carrying out a wider investigation into the trust and we will publish the findings of this in due course,” a CQC spokesperson said.

Police have confirmed a separate inquiry into reports of mistreatment of patients by a member of staff is continuing.

Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-14339185?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

More on “UKHCA Chair ‘sets the record straight’”

Announcement posted on: 7 July 2011

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has announced the plan to close down NHS Direct in England.

As the BBC reported: NHS Direct currently employs more than 3,000 staff, 40% of whom are trained nurses. It is understood the ratio on the 1-1-1 helpline is slightly less in the pilot, but no figures are yet available for what will happen when the scheme is rolled out nationally.

Critics claim the change would undermine the quality of the service by reducing the number of qualified nurses answering calls, but chief executive of NHS Direct Nick Chapman told the BBC the new helpline would be better and more cost effective than NHS Direct.

What do you think of the closure of NHS Direct and do you think that the new 1-1-1 service will act as a good, cost effective replacement?

Source. http://nhsmatters.co.uk/nhs-direct-closes-what-do-you-think/

Recruiters, employers and healthcare workers have welcomed plans for the introduction of a ‘skills passport’.

A one-year pilot project was conducted among nursing staff at seven English NHS Trusts during 2009/10 seeking to test ‘proof of concept’ for the passport which allows workers to create a verified online record of their skills, qualifications and experience. This can be viewed by prospective or existing employers as required.

According to research from sector skills council Skills for Health, employers liked the way the passport can cut unnecessary duplication of statutory and mandatory training and pre-employment checks each time a worker moves between employers, while nurses praised the passport’s potential contribution to career development and job mobility. 

Kate Bleasdale, executive vice chairman of HCL, told Recruiter: “With their uniquely transferable skills, the UK’s healthcare workforce is becoming more and more mobile and is also becoming increasingly inclined towards flexible working patterns. Any measure which supports these trends, and supports healthcare workers’ continued professional development, is welcome. With an increasing demand for healthcare professionals from a growing and aging population, it’s also vital for patient care that healthcare professionals can move seamlessly to new roles, with as little red tape as possible.

Caron Ratcliffe, director of nursing, Apex Health + Social Care, adds: “As a supplier of temporary staff to the NHS we would welcome the introduction of a ‘skills passport.”

The Department of Health (DH) has relaxed its position on the use of Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) Certificates, effectively introducing a limited system of “portability” for care services regulated by CQC.

This new approach applies in services provided to adults (but not children) in England and allows employers – under certain circumstances – to accept a Disclosure Certificate produced by a prospective employee, provided that the Certificate is no more than 3 months old and is at the appropriate level. In these circumstances, the employer does not need to complete a new application for a Disclosure. UKHCA has produced guidance for members on using portability in homecare services, which includes recent (DH) Dept of Health and CQC guidance.

The Department of Health (DoH) has announced its intention to explore options with the private sector for potential investment in NHS Professionals (NHSP) – the organisation that was initially set up as an in-house provider of flexible staff within the NHS.

Underlining the significance of the announcement, Tom Hadley, the REC’s Director of External Relations says: ”This is a real milestone, as it is recognition for the private sector’s long-standing role in effectively resourcing the NHS. For many years, the REC has called for a level playing field between public and private sector providers and has questioned the value of having an unwieldy and bureaucratic internal model.”

“NHSP was established with huge public subsidies to replicate the work of specialised recruitment agencies. It has failed on both the quality of service offered to NHS Trusts and the financial burden it has placed on the taxpayer.”

“While private investment may be helpful, the way forward is for NHS Professionals to be fully privatised. This will enable it to compete on a level playing field with other providers and again show that the private sector is best placed to help NHS employers with their critical resourcing needs.”

Hadley added: “The NHS is one of the largest employers in the world and presents one of the greatest resourcing challenges there is.  Flexible staffing arrangements will remain crucial for the delivery of front line services and specialised agencies will continue to provide the most cost-effective means of ensuring that the right staff are in the right place at the right time.”

SOURCE

The commission set up this week to reform care funding must give as much weight to the needs of adults with lifelong conditions as they do to older people, one of its three members has said.

In her first interview since her appointment, Jo Williams said people with lifelong conditions had particular funding needs due to a lack of assets, work or social opportunities, and the fact that few had their own accommodation.

She added: “That’s a group of people who clearly the commission will need to take account of as well as older people.”

Williams said she was drawing on her experience as chief executive of Mencap from 2003-8. Following her departure, the charity, among others, criticised Labour’s Green Paper on reforming care funding last year for neglecting the needs of younger disabled adults and concentrating on people who had developed care needs later in life after building up assets.

Williams also brings to the role a background as a social worker and a 30-year career in social services, including spells as director in Cheshire and Wigan and as president of the Association of Director of Social Services.

She was also confirmed this week as the government’s choice for chair of the Care Quality Commission, a post she has held on an interim basis for seven months.

The Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, which is chaired by economist Andrew Dilnot and also includes former social services director and Labour health minister Norman Warner, will hold its first meeting at the end of next month, Williams revealed.

However, it faces a tight timescale having been set targets to provide ministers with the criteria it will use to judge competing funding options by mid-September and also to feed into the government’s spending review, which is due to report on 20 October. Its final report is due by next July and Williams said she would be contributing one day a week to its work.

Williams said: “I don’t think [the timescale's] negotiable. There’s an expectation that we will deliver to that date. We need to roll our sleeves up.”

She said the commission would have to decide how much capacity it had to “get the balance right between engagement, listening to people, taking evidence, reading documents and looking at what’s happening in other countries”.

Williams said the commission would draw upon previous evidence on the issue, which includes work done by the Labour government over the past year, but said she could not tell whether it would have to commission new evidence.

Jo Williams is a Board member of the Care Quality Commission and was the former Chief Executive, Royal Mencap Society. She is also the former president of the Association of Directors of Social Services and champion for social care services throughout a career in local government. She is also Co-chair of the Learning Disability Coalition and a member of bodies advising government on the third sector, carers, learning disabilities and children’s services

Firms which already have small-scale involvement with family doctors are preparing to exploit the chance to gain an unprecedented foothold in the NHS once GPs start spending £80bn of NHS funds.

They said they expected the switch to GP commissioning outlined in the white paper to help them have a much wider involvement with the NHS, and especially to work closely with the 300-500 new “consortiums” of GPs which the Department of Health expects to emerge to become key purchasers of treatment for patients.

Bart Johnson, chief executive of Assura Medical, said: “We are enthusiastic about the reforms. Assura Medical already works with groups of GPs across the country providing a whole range of services. We see this as a good opportunity to build upon our current work with GPs and the NHS to improve health outcomes for patients.”

Kingsley Manning, business development director at Tribal, which also already provides commissioning support services to some parts of the NHS, cautiously welcomed moves which the firm said “could lead to the denationalisation of healthcare services in England”.

Manning, a visiting professor at the business school at Imperial College London, added: “There is a significant opportunity to improve commissioning in the NHS. We can help because we make the investment in the technology and skills needed to save the NHS money. We have done so with many primary care trusts [PCTs], saving millions.”

Bupa Health Dialog, a subsidiary of the global health giant’s UK arm which specialises in extending the firm’s relationship with the NHS, also expects to gain work. “We would say that the new policy represents a significant opportunity for us to work with more and more GPs, and GP organisations, to improve outcomes and quality [of care] for patients”, said the subsidiary’s managing director, Bob Darin. A “significant” number of GPs “will want to work with Bupa or companies like us to provide tools to help them take a holistic view of their local population’s clinical needs and thus make more informed commissioning decisions”.

Doctors’ leaders and health experts agree that GPs’ clinical skills will not be enough for them to discharge their new responsibilities and that the consortiums will need help them with finance, management, accountancy and data analysis.

Nick Goodwin, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund health think-tank, said: “It’s likely that many of the GP consortia will need to either hook up with a PCT or go outside the NHS to firms like Tribal, United Healthcare or Bupa Health Dialog. Most PCTs don’t have the expertise to offer technical skills, like information systems that allow them to understand the health needs of their local population.”

But the British Medical Association, the doctors’ trade union, voiced alarm at the likely expansion of private firms’ role and said that most GPs would aim to perform their expanded role without them. “The BMA position on this is that we would not be happy [for private sector involvement]. We don’t think it is necessary”, said Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA’s influential GPs committee.

“I think the vast majority of GPs will not be keen to involve the private sector in this. This is an opportunity for GPs to unite to make sure that the health service works well for the people of England, without the involvement of the private sector,” he added. The issue could lead to tension between the BMA and the Department of Health in forthcoming negotiations about implementation of the planned changes.

A BMA spokesman added: “We are concerned that increased private competition within the NHS could lead to wasteful expenditure or the duplication of services, for example independent sector treatment centres providing the same services as as the NHS, when that money could be spent on frontline patient services.

“We have always said that the private sector is no more efficient than the NHS and a lot of money is being wasted on private sector contracts and companies. We feel the involvement to date of private sector companies hasn’t delivered many benefits to patients or the NHS. It’s much better if you have services wholly provided by the NHS. The private sector should be the provider of last resort.”.

He cited the possibility of management consultants coming in to do jobs currently done by NHS staff. “We would be very concerned about that,” he said.

The health secretary’s message that independent operators are welcome to carry out work for the NHS rips up attempts by Labour’s health secretary, Andy Burnham, to establish the health service as “the preferred provider” of NHS services.

David Fleming, national officer for health with the Unite trade union, denounced GP commissioning as “an untested, expensive Trojan Horse in political dogma that will give private companies an even greater stake in the NHS – this way of operating has already happened in the USA.”

The NHS Support Federation, an independent campaign group, said GP commissioning “will create a spaghetti-like snarl of conflicting interests, where profit will inevitably come before patients. Paying companies to spend the huge NHS budget on other companies is a recipe for scandalous waste and the sort of shady deals that the public must be protected from,” said the group’s director, Paul Evans.

SOURCE