The government's policy change over 'top-up' treatment is not all it seems, writes Jon Robins
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Nurses told to accept rise below inflation by chief given 26 per cent increase. David Nicholson, who became NHS chief executive in 2006, earned the equivalent of between £195,000 and £200,000 in that financial year. The head of the NHS in England received a huge pay rise of up to 32 per cent at the same time as presiding over a below-inflation pay deal for nurses. Ministers face accusations of allowing the budget for senior NHS managers to almost treble in the past three years, from £1.2m to over £3.4m.
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The NHS will be told to rein in its spending next year, potentially forcing cuts in services, managers say.
In 2009-10 trusts will be permitted to use only £400 million of the £1.7 billion surplus that they are expected to generate this year, and will not get the full increase in resources pledged to them by the Treasury, the Health Service Journal reports.
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KEEP fit enthusiasts in Manchester may soon be jogging in free trainers provided as part of a war against obesity.
If they agree to buy healthy food and to exercise regularly they will get "loyalty" points to exchange for free sportswear or games equipment.
That could mean that in Manchester trainers could be bought with taxpayer's money. But Health Secretary Alan Johnson said the alternative was to spend millions on treating people who are overweight.
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Nine areas with high levels of obesity are to be designated "healthy towns" where the NHS and local authorities will use commercial marketing techniques to reward people who adopt healthier lifestyles, the government said yesterday.
The health secretary, Alan Johnson, allocated £30m to test ways of changing people's behaviour to avert an epidemic of obesity, which he described as England's "biggest health challenge".
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Manchester and Portsmouth among nine areas included in £30m initiative unveiled by the health secretary, Alan Johnson
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Rather than asking the NHS to shell out for a patented statin, those who want them should be offered combination pills
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Nine areas in England are set to become “healthy towns” under a plan by ministers to combat obesity.
Dudley, Halifax, Sheffield, Tower Hamlets in London, Thetford, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Tewkesbury and Portsmouth will share a total of £30 million in funding to help improve the health of their populations.
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Overweight parents will be paid to walk their children to school under plans to tackle the obesity epidemic.
Those who attend keep-fit classes, weight-loss clubs or even go for a run in the park would also be eligible for rewards.
They will collect points on supermarket-style loyalty cards which would be redeemed against healthy food, sports equipment or gym sessions.
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Routine operations for complaints such as varicose veins are being cut back to save the NHS money, leaving patients having to put up with the agonising condition or pay for expensive private treatment. It’s just privatisation by stealth, says Eddie Chaloner, a consultant vascular surgeon at Lewisham Hospital — and once again, it’s the patient who suffers.
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Nine areas have been given the go-ahead to become "healthy towns" under a plan by ministers to combat obesity.
Dudley, Halifax, Sheffield, Tower Hamlets in London, Thetford in Norfolk, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Tewkesbury and Portsmouth will share a £30m pot.
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Mark Lawson (A poisonous prescription, December 7) rightly identifies the threat to the basic principles of the NHS that allowing those who can afford it to pay for extra drug treatment poses. However we dispute that "the NHS could not have afforded this" (ie expenditure on expensive life-prolonging drugs). From the figures given in Professor Richards' review, Improving Access to Medicines for NHS Patients, we calculate that the cost of providing unapproved drugs would be £120m a year, which is a tiny proportion of the £110bn NHS budget.
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The wife of a leading figure in the campaign to end the ban on NHS patients paying privately for life-prolonging cancer drugs died from the disease just two weeks before Alan Johnson, the health secretary, announced a U-turn on the policy.
Earlier this year Gordon Matthews, an NHS trauma consultant, persuaded doctors’ leaders to back the campaign to end the practice by which hospitals withdrew state care from patients who bought drugs.
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It has taken an inexcusably long time, but last week, the Government finally recognised that it was both cruel and unfair to deny NHS patients who decided to buy themselves drugs that the NHS would not purchase for them. Linda O'Boyle is now dead, but she became the focus of the media campaign that forced the Government to change its mind. Her life was prolonged by the use of the anti-cancer drug Cetuximab. She paid for it because the NHS would not do so. She was denied NHS care as a consequence, and had to pay another £11,000 to private hospitals for chemotherapy and nursing.
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Fewer people are paying for private medical treatment as the credit crunch forces patients back to the NHS.
The number opting to buy procedures such as cataract operations and hip surgery has fallen for the first time in years, according to health analysts.
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HOSPITAL bosses battling to get back £7.5m - mostly charitable donations - frozen in the Icelandic cash crisis say they are doing everything they can.
Manchester's Christie hospital is now registered as a creditor of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander with Ernst and Young, who are managing the institution's bankruptcy.
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UNIONS have claimed that up to 900 workers in social care in Wirral could be affected by what they have described as “privatisation” plans.
Around 70 people protested outside Wallasey town hall last night ahead of a meeting by the council to consider the proposals.
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Were Britain's doctors this week the victims of spin doctors? A fundamental change in the nature of the NHS was revealed on Tuesday, when that night's TV news and the next day's papers were guaranteed to be filled with the US election. The recent history of political management encourages the suspicion that the government was hoping to bury the announcement that patients who buy drugs the health service refuses to fund will no longer have to opt out of public medicine and pay for their own nursing and care.
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Insurance bosses believe there is a lucrative market opening up to sell policies to NHS patients after the decision to lift the top-ups ban.
Leading firms including Standard Life, AXA PPP and Bupa are looking into the implications of this week's decision.
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A finance watchdog is asking NHS patients in Wales to tell them of their experiences in booking emergency GP appointments and using A&E services.\n\nThe Wales Audit Office said the system can be complex and "can be confusing".
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