Health Management and Policy Alert

Front of pack nutrition labelling: joint response to consultation

This response to a joint consultation held on behalf of health ministers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on front of pack nutrition labelling demonstrates the wish for a move towards a more consistent form of front of pack nutrition labelling.

• Consultation response
• Written ministerial statement
• Department of Health - news

Fire safety duties

This letter highlights the main findings from a report by the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), into fire safety in the NHS. It follows a fire incident at a hospital in October 2011, as a result of which the FRS had planned to prosecute the NHS Trust concerned. It aims to address the safety concerns raised as well as the issue of criminal liability following NHS trust mergers.

• Letter
• Department of Health - news

Quality of life of cancer survivors in England: analysis of patients’ free text comments

This report summarises text responses from cancer survivors on how they feel about their quality of life following diagnosis and treatment. It is aimed at commissioners, commissioning support units and providers to help them understand how services may offer appropriate education, advice and support to the growing numbers of people who are living well, following completion of cancer treatment.

• Report
• Department of Health - news

Quality accounts: reporting arrangements for 2012/13

This letter describes amendments to the NHS Quality Accounts Regulations 2010. These amendments come into effect from February 2013 and change the reporting requirements for Quality Accounts being published in June this year.

• Letter
• Department of Health - news

2012/13 governance statement guidance

This letter sets out the requirements for completion and submission of 2012/13 governance statements for SHAs, PCTs and NHS trusts. The governance statement records the stewardship of organisations to supplement the accounts. It also gives a sense of how successfully it has coped with the challenges it has faced and of how vulnerable performance is or might be. It also draws together position statements and evidence on governance, risk management and control.

• Letter
• Department of Health - news

South London Healthcare NHS Trust: notice of decision by Secretary of State

This notice of the Secretary of State's decision in relation to South London Healthcare NHS Trust aims to secure sustainable provision of health services to those patients served by the trust and in the south east London health economy. It states that the trust will be dissolved, with each of its hospitals taken over by a neighbouring hospital trust.  These mergers are subject to approval from the relevant regulators. All 3 hospitals within the trust will be required to make the full £74.9 million of efficiencies identified by the Trust Special Administrator. All vacant or poorly utilised premises will be vacated, and sold where possible. The Department of Health will pay for the excess costs of the PFI buildings and write off accumulated debt so that the new organisations are not saddled with historic debts.  It will also negotiate an appropriate level of transitional funding to cover implementation.

• Notice
• King's Fund response
• Department of Health - news

Spending on health and social care over the next 50 years: why think long term?

This report considers the drivers of spending on health and long-term care, and asks whether spending must or should consume such large proportions of GDP in the future, and the fiscal feasibility of this. It examines the evidence that spending will inexorably rise, considers projections and high-level modelling of future health spending both in the United Kingdom and internationally, and debates alternative systems of assessing current and future spending. It also suggests a need for engaged and informed public debate about the choices to be made in future spending on health and social care.

• Report
• Related talk from John Appleby
• Press release
• The King's Fund - Time to Think Differently

Does a hospital’s quality depend on the quality of other hospitals? : a spatial econometrics approach to investigating hospital quality competition

This research paper sets out a theoretical model with regulated prices which specifies conditions on demand and cost functions which determine whether a hospital will have higher quality when its rivals have higher quality. Findings show that a hospital’s quality is positively associated with the quality of its rivals for seven out of the sixteen quality measures and that in no case is there a negative association. Also, in those cases where there is a positive association, an increase in rivals’ quality by 10% increases a hospital’s quality by 1.7% to 2.9%.

• Research paper
• CHE - publications

Quality of patient care

This open letter to member chairs and chief executives ahead of the publication of the Francis report, due out on 6th February, acknowledges that poor pockets of care are likely to exist across the NHS.

• Letter
• FTN - news

E-mental health: what's all the fuss about?

This paper looks at how the mental health sector could make the most of opportunities offered by e-mental health. It also gives examples of how service users, mental health providers and other organisations are already embracing e-mental health to bring about change.

• Report
• NHS Confederation - publications