Tory health committee chair defends NHS chief in funding row with PM

The Conservative chair of the health select committee has defended the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, in his dispute with Theresa May over health service funding.

Dr Sarah Wollaston said she agreed with Stevens’ contradiction of May’s claim last Sunday that the NHS had been given more funding than it required up to 2020.

Stevens repeatedly dismissed May’s comments to Sky News when he appeared before the public accounts committee on Wednesday, showing the extent of the divisions between himself and the prime minister.

Asked on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme if the NHS had been allocated more cash than it needed, Wollaston replied: “I don’t think that is strictly true.”

She said the government’s £10bn figure included transfers from other healthcare budgets. “So, you can see how the government has reached that figure. But the committee felt that a fairer figure, if we’re using the usual measure, was £4.5bn, which is a very different number,” she said.

Health had to be considered with social care “and what Simon Stevens was very clear when he spoke to the committee about, was if you have cuts to social care, that has an enormous impact on the NHS. So that is why he doesn’t agree,” she said.

“And I would agree with him that the NHS hasn’t been given everything it asked for, because it doesn’t actually consider social care, and it doesn’t consider the cuts to public health budgets, the kind of prevention work that we know is essential if we’re going to reduce demand on the NHS.”

Responding to claims that Stevens was not doing enough to alleviate the NHS crisis, Wollaston said “Personally, I think that is unreasonable. I think as a public servant and somebody who heads the NHS, the government needs to give him their unequivocal support in the very hard job he is undertaking to try to get this whole system to work.”

Wollaston, a former GP, also criticised the scapegoating of family doctors and the threat to withdraw funding unless they agreed to work longer hours.

She said it was entirely wrong to blame one section of the workforce, when administrative work, home visits and chasing test results had to be done when surgeries were closed.

GPs were “extraordinarily stretched and working under relentless pressure as bed numbers [in hospitals] are being cut,” she said.

“We now have the lowest number of beds per head in Europe. What we are finding is more and more complex conditions are coming back to primary care, so the work of the GP is changing and the pressures on them are relentless.

“The workforce simply isn’t there in many parts of the country, So I think to then be suggesting that all of this problem is due to GPs not seeing people is really stretching it,” Wollaston said.

“It’s just not the case and wrong to scapegoat them, in my view.”

Tory health committee chair defends NHS chief in funding row with PM

Former Tory health minister defends Simon Stevens over NHS winter crisis

A former Conservative health secretary has said it was unfair for Downing Street to hint that the NHS England boss, Simon Stevens, was to blame for the winter crisis gripping the health service.

Stephen Dorrell, now chair of the NHS Confederation, issued the rebuke after Stevens told MPs on Wednesday that Theresa May was “stretching it” by saying the health service had got more money than it had requested.

Sources close to May had suggested to the Times that Downing Street thought Stevens was “not enthusiastic” and was annoyed by his political interventions, particularly on social care funding. The prime minister’s spokeswoman later denied relations were frosty, saying May had full confidence in Stevens.

Dorrell said he believed that any allegations of political interference, and the insistence that the NHS had received the funding it had requested, were not fair to Stevens.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I do think it is unfair on him, because he’s made it clear from the beginning … He set out, he is the author of, the five-year forward view; he is the author of the government’s policy of the health service as part of a broad range of public services.

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn clash over NHS at first PMQs of 2017

“He’s been the strong advocate of the need to integrate, to change the way we deliver health and care in our communities in order to deliver more joined-up services with proper emphasis on care as well as on the essential elements of acute medicine.”

Dorrell said the government “should be addressing the evidence about what is happening on the ground rather than engaging in a rather high-profile discussion about, frankly, what sound to the public like telephone numbers of public expenditure”.

Speaking to the Commons public accounts committee on Wednesday, Stevens said “there are clearly very substantial pressures, and I don’t think it helps anybody to try and pretend that there aren’t”. He pointed that out the extra £10bn the government had referred to was being granted over six years, meaning the health service had less than it had asked for in its five-year-plan.

Stevens even appeared to take aim at May’s experience as home secretary, saying that dealing with challenges posed by an ageing population was “quite different to the criminal justice system”.

The row came as it was reported that at least 23 NHS trusts in England had declared a black alert in the past week, while freezing temperatures are expected to exacerbate the strain on the UK’s overstretched hospitals and heath services.

On Wednesday, May said claims by the Red Cross that the health service was suffering a humanitarian crisis were “irresponsible and overblown” in a series of clashes with the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, over the issue. “Our NHS, Mr Speaker, is in crisis, but the prime minister is in denial,” Corbyn said.

The shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, published a letter he sent to May about Stevens’ performance, asking if she agreed with his assessment of funding levels and the effects of cuts to social care.

“Failure to take Simon Stevens’ warnings seriously would risk deepening a crisis that has already pushed the NHS to breaking point,” he wrote.

Former Tory health minister defends Simon Stevens over NHS winter crisis

Labour defends junior doctors against "militant and overpaid" portrayal

Junior doctors planning five-day strikes are not unreasonable, militant or overpaid, despite what government “propaganda” suggests, Labour has said.

Diane Abbott, the shadow health secretary, said it was wrong for ministers to portray junior doctors as the “enemy within”, after they announced plans for their longest walkout yet in a dispute about a new employment contract.

The latest plans have divided the medical community, with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges expressing disappointment at the British Medical Association’s decision to hold five-day strikes each month for the rest of year.

However, a key group within the academy, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), has dissented from the statement and condemned the government for imposing new contracts on junior doctors and overstretching the NHS.

Writing for the Guardian, Abbott also backed the struggle of the junior doctors, saying there was a danger that changes to rotas under those contracts would increase the risks to patients, and doctors might end up working even longer hours.

“The government is attempting to portray this entirely as a result of unreasonable, militant or even out of touch and overpaid junior doctors flexing their muscles. Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said.

“In psychology, this is known as projection. They are blaming NHS workers for their own failings. It is the government which is flexing its muscles. It is possible that junior doctors are just the first group of workers who will be targeted for the unreasonable imposition of contracts without negotiation.

“The Tory government is also out of touch with public opinion. Of course, the public dislikes the disruption and may even be fearful of its consequences. But they are clear that the blame for this lies with the government.”

Diane Abbott speaks to Jeremy Corbyn supporters last month. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Earlier, Prof Neena Modi, the president of the RCPCH, said the academy was wrong to suggest that junior doctors were compromising patient safety by opting to strike, when the government had imposed “crippling problems” on the NHS.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “We felt it was unjust in its implication that junior doctors do not put patient safety first and foremost. I believe junior doctors are always putting patient safety to the forefront of their concern. I know of no instance where any children were harmed during the last strike.”

She said it was the government’s squeeze on spending that was compromising safety. “Children’s preventive healthcare services have borne the brunt of the recent cuts to public health expenditure,” Modi said.

She added: “We have to consider what the junior doctors are saying, [it is] the imposition of the contract which has so dismayed them, it has been predicated on the false grounds that this will in some way provide seven-day NHS services. We are barely managing to provide five-day services at the moment. How, without additional resource … can you suddenly say ‘we will impose a seven-day service, we will impose a new contract on junior doctors’ out of thin air? That doesn’t stack up.”

The academy’s statement said strike action was not proportionate. Modi took issue with the wording. “Is it really proportionate to claim that by imposing the new contract we will suddenly deliver seven-day services?” she said.

Challenged about the potentially debilitating impact of the strikes on patients, Modi said: “We have had crippling problems placed upon the health service, those are debilitating too. Those are extending far beyond five days.”

Modi urged both sides in the dispute to return to the negotiating table. “We, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, have on several occasions written to the secretary of state for health, asking him, urging him, pleading with him, simply to be magnanimous, to show leadership, to drop the imposition of this contract.”

The academy denied it was split on the issue. A spokesman said: “We have 22 members. The only college that didn’t agree to the statement was the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The overwhelming majority signed up.”

Nigel Edwards, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, said junior doctors needed the support of their senior colleagues.

Speaking on Today, he said: “The seniors were very supportive of the junior staff last time and that did make a big difference. It ensured that patients, paradoxically, actually got perhaps superior treatment when they were treated. Whether they will do that this time is open to question. It does seem quite significant that there has been this quite obvious shift in the opinion of the leaders of the medical profession. The academy don’t always find their members necessarily follow them, but they are a very good bellwether for where opinion is.”

Edwards said the strike would pose an added financial burden on NHS trusts because of the number of cancelled operations.

“A bigger, longer-term concern is that it makes quite a big difference to hospitals’ income if they lose this work. And they are all in quite serious financial trouble. Losing three weeks’ worth of planned care income is a big deal, and they may lose access to additional funds that the NHS has put aside to help support the financial position.

“The NHS has got this huge challenge to improve productivity. How does it do that if it doesn’t have the support of some of its key workers?”

Labour defends junior doctors against "militant and overpaid" portrayal

NHS watchdog defends "real benefits" of excess weight reduction programmes

The man in charge of public wellness at NHS watchdog Nice mentioned obesity could cause a host of severe problems and that there were “real advantages” for folks losing as tiny as 3 per-cent of their physique mass.

His feedback come after Wonderful was criticised for recommending that almost 70% of the population should attend commercial bodyweight-loss programmes like WeightWatchers with the help of state-funding.

“3 per-cent generates tangible positive aspects, and we know these programes can deliver that,” explained Professor Mike Kelly.

He described weight problems as a “main well being dilemma.”

“It is connected with Type-2 diabetes, hypertension, specific varieties of cancer, for illustration breast cancer, endometrial cancer and colon cancer, as properly as osteoarthritis,” he said.

NHS watchdog defends "real benefits" of excess weight reduction programmes

Addenbrooke"s hospital defends patient resuscitation choices amid legal battle

The family of Janet Tracey, who died at Addenbrooke’s, are seeking a national policy over DNR consultation. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The hospital at the heart of a legal challenge more than the way physicians determine not to attempt resuscitation insisted on Tuesday that its personnel had not acted “with callous or negligent disregard” for a patient.

The husband and daughters of Janet Tracey, a care home manager who died at Addenbrooke’s, want a national policy in England requiring medics to check with patients and family members before creating such selections.

Tracey, 63, broke her neck in a auto accident quickly after she had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She died in March 2011 following possessing two “do not resuscitate” (DNR) notices placed in her notes.

Lord Pannick QC, representing Cambridge University Hospitals basis believe in, of which Addenbrooke’s is a portion, told the appeal court a determination had been produced by a caring medical doctor who had “on the harsh health-related facts” decided that resuscitation would have achieved practically nothing.

Acknowledging that the situation concerned an exceptionally hard region of health care practice and ethics, he mentioned there was no duty to consult a patient “the place it would certainly be inappropriate to do so”.

In Tracey’s case, the first DNR notice placed in her notes was cancelled 5 days later right after it was challenged by her family members. A 2nd observe followed two days ahead of Tracey’s death.

Judge Nicola Davies determined right after an earlier hearing that the first discover, on which Tracey had not been consulted and did not at initial know about, had “minimum causative result” because it was later revoked. Its issuing remains the main target of the family’s situation.

In the second instance, the judge found that Tracey had not been consulted but she had not desired to engage in this kind of discussions and her household had not wished to involve her.

Pannick, for the hospital, argued there was a “general desirability” to check with, but in the case of the very first DNR, a “caring medical professional” may properly have spared Tracey “a discussion which was going to lead to her distress for no good reason”.

The remarks came after Philip Havers QC for Tracey’s family informed Lord Dyson, the master of the rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Longmore and Lord Justice Ryder, that across England DNR selections have been becoming produced that did not reflect both Uk specialist advice or neighborhood trust policy. Sufferers were entitled to be notified, involved and have the proper to look for a second viewpoint prior to DNR orders have been made, he argued.

The overall health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, should phase in with nationwide advice to supply “essential safety” for sufferers and their households since he had overarching control of the NHS, explained Havers.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has intervened in the situation, arguing by means of David Wolfe QC that no patient with psychological capacity ought to understand that a DNR selection had been manufactured in relation to them “without having had the chance to be component of a method which led to it currently being manufactured.”

In addition, it mentioned, no 1 should find out that a loved one particular had died without an try becoming made at resuscitation because this kind of a recognize had been positioned without having the information or involvement of the patient – or their loved ones or legal advocate, if they lacked capacity – in the selection-generating method.

The situation continues.

Addenbrooke"s hospital defends patient resuscitation choices amid legal battle

David Cameron defends NHS pay decision

In an interview during his trip to Israel, Prime Minister David Cameron was asked why he did not come to feel all NHS workers had been worth a 1% shell out rise.

Mr Cameron replied: “NHS workers are worth a 1% pay rise and absolutely everyone in the NHS will get at least a 1% shell out rise, either by way of the one% increase or through the progression payments that they otherwise get.

“But let us seem at the big picture here. It is correct to make difficult selections about public sector spend.

“It is very good that it is increasing and not frozen but it is appropriate to consider individuals hard selections simply because it means we can preserve much more people employed, we can maintain much more folks in perform and make sure we spend income on crucial treatments, on hospitals, on delivering solutions, which is what sufferers so badly want.”

David Cameron defends NHS pay decision