HSJ Health Check

This week the team analyses what government’s new health plan – the most significant reform of the NHS in nearly a decade – really means. While giving integrated care systems a statutory footing and axing the NHS tender process, if passed the proposals would give the health secretary far-reaching powers over NHS England, other arm's length bodies and local reconfigurations. Featuring Sharon Brennan, Ben Clover, Annabelle Collins and Dave West.

This week the team discuss two major stories, unrelated, but both in the Midlands. We discuss Rebecca Thomas’ investigation into “heartbreaking” patient safety incidents in University Hospitals Birmingham FT’s haematology services. This was prompted by more whistleblowers than ever before making contact with her. We also cover University Hospitals of Leicester’s “unprecedented” financial breakdown, after further revelations about the trust's relationship with its external auditors. And of course, an update on covid pressures too. Although admissions are slowly declining there has been little relief in ICU departments and for staff.

“Resilience requires buffer and buffer can look wasteful until the moment that it isn’t,” Simon Stevens told MPs at a committee hearing in parliament this week. We discuss how the pandemic made the NHS’ approach to running everything to optimum, just-in-time efficiency fall apart. We also talk about NHS England’s decision to start collecting race and ethnicity date when giving the covid vacation seven weeks after the programme was launched and what impact this could have on health inequalities. And of course, a vaccine roll-out update, did the NHS miss its care home vaccination target after all? Featuring Annabelle Collins, Nick Kituno, Jasmine Rapson and Jack Serle

Operational pressures on the NHS because of covid are still high, and although admissions are starting to level off in some places, the usual winter challenge of patient discharge is more troubling than ever. This week Sharon Brennan, Nick Carding, Annabelle Collins and Dave West reflect on the barriers to covid patient discharge, why funding from the Treasury is too little, too late and why domiciliary care is the real pinch-point. We also delve into the logistics of vaccine delivery and why high-vaccinating areas of the country are seeing their vaccine supplies halved. And, a gimmick or sensible worst case scenario planning? We reveal how much the Nightingale hospitals really cost.

Hospitals in the Midlands are being primed to take covid patients from London and the South East, but with the tidal wave of covid admissions sweeping north this seems like a very short term fix. This week on the podcast the team track how admissions are changing throughout the country, with numbers starting to dip in London for the second day in a row. Things are looking less promising in other regions, with particular concern about the North once again. We also discuss why the capital appears to be lagging behind on vaccines and why supply rather than manpower is a sticking point. With Annabelle Collins, Lawrence Dunhill, Jasmine Rapson and Rebecca Thomas.

Amid the covid chaos and ever- climbing cases in England this week, the team try and dissect what’s going on. Our expert journalists discuss what is really means for the NHS to be “overwhelmed”, how the latest surge is affecting intensive care provision and the workforce and whether it’s time to return to the national emergency management approach to keeping the health service on its feet. There is a silver lining we didn’t have in the spring – the vaccine – so we also discuss how the mass vaccination programme is progressing. Featuring Ben Clover, Annabelle Collins, Matt Discombe and Dave West.

Four HSJ correspondents make their predictions for the NHS in 2021, from the vaccination programme and more reorganisation, through to change at the top, staffing and mental health. Annabelle Collins, Dave West, Nick Carding and Rebecca Thomas also look back at how our 2020 forecasts panned out. Which was not too terrible, despite the cataclysmic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

This week has seen the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine administered in the UK, but the continuing covid pressures on the NHS remain, with concerns raised about the health service being overwhelmed in coming weeks and months. We explore what impact this would have on care provided and what is being done to mitigate it. The vaccine programme rumbles on and we discuss the roll out in primary care expected next week and some of the sticking points faced by GPs. Featuring Alastair McLellan, Annabelle Collins and Jasmine Rapson.

The UK is the first country in the western World to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech covid vaccine and now the baton has been passed to the NHS to successfully deliver it.    This week on the podcast we unpick this huge piece of news and discuss the incredibly complicated logistics behind rolling out a vaccination programme this big, why its essential the government gets the communication spot on and how the NHS is approaching this challenge.   We also discuss the crucial role primary care could have in getting the country and economy back on track.    Featuring Annabelle Collins, Jasmine Rapson, Jack Serle and Dave West.

This week has seen a flood of coronavirus related news so the podcast this week discusses two other important happenings, that might have been given more attention in normal times. First up, we analyse what the Chancellor’s spending review means for the NHS and the day-to-day running of hospitals, the thorny issue of staff pay and an unfulfilled promise on social care. We also discuss the latest development in the undoing of the 2012 Lansley Reforms and the timeframe for new NHS legislation. Featuring Annabelle Collins, Tom Norton and Dave West.