HSJ Health Check

Hospitals are being told by NHS England to focus on easy wins to hit this financial year’s A&E targets, so on this episode we unpick what trusts are being ask to do and whether this will get them over the line by the end of March.
NHSE also finally published guidance on its “model emergency department”, which will see under-performing trusts required to open new treatment areas. But, as ever, big questions remain about funding. 
And we get under the skin of a recent HSJ analysis that showed the health service has been haemorrhaging non-clinical staff.

This week we cover a mysterious update to the “model ICB” blueprint that hasn’t been formally published or endorsed by NHS England, but instead passed in whispers. 
We also talk about the full timetable for merging NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care and one of the biggest stories this week: the unexpected resignation of Ming Tang, NHSE’s chief data and analytics officer. 
We discuss her legacy, most notably the federated data platform, and why some of the biggest trusts are yet to start using it.

On this episode we’re joined by Lord Philip Hunt of King’s Heath - who was a minister in the Labour government until last year, and has played a huge role in Labour health policy and in NHS leadership over several decades.
He was a health minister in the Blair government with Alan Milburn, has served in several Labour shadow health teams, worked as a senior NHS manager, and was the first chief executive of the NHS Confederation. 
Lord Hunt is an active Parliamentarian and will shape the health bill when it hits the upper house. He tells us about its likely (tight) timings, and where the big clashes and U-turns may come.

On this episode we cover one of the most expensive employment tribunals in the NHS and why a trust must pay its former chief executive £1.4m in damages.
Also this week, an update on the new hospitals programme from the government spending watchdog, which included surprise dates for when rebuilds were likely to reopen - some of which are still 20 years’ away.
We also cover serious concerns raised about the quality of a trust’s medical training and more on the new chief executive of the merging NHS Providers/Confederation.

On this episode we’re talking about the tricky balancing act between cutting waiting lists and keeping finances under control, after Wes Streeting warned this week that some trusts have tried to cut deficits too sharply. 
 
Also this week, two stories from Birmingham, including more on a damning external review into a major trust’s international training programme.