Here are the health-related links that have caught our eyes between January 9th and January 17th:
- Regulator chastises managers forcing GP practices to prepare for CQC registration | News Article | Pulse Today – In a move to reassure GPs over registration, the CQC has also pledged that surgeries won’t be closed over not having disabled access and that supporting evidence won’t always be necessary to prove compliance with standards.
- Management in Practice – MPs brand GP practice regulation ‘challenging’ – While the CQC’s annual accountability report by the Health Select Committee released today (9 January 2013), was critical of the regulator, it was reassured the organisation will improve on its past encounters with dentists in registering and regulating GP practices.Stephen Dorrell, Health Select Committee chair, said: “My committee will examine carefully the extent to which the CQC has learnt from its experience of dental registration and is able to deliver a streamlined process that limits the burdens placed on GPs.”
- Management in Practice – Local authorities now control health budget – Public health budgets have been “ring-fenced” for the first time as local authorities take responsibility for community health.The £5.45 billion public health budget was announced today (10 January 2013) by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
- Management in Practice – Councils ‘will not meet’ public health spending targets – Altogether 99 authorities will fall short of their targets by 2014-15, by less than 1% in the London borough of Hillingdon, for example, to as much as 43% in its immediate neighbour to the west, Slough, in Berkshire.
- CCG chairs warn their voices are being ‘diluted’ over hospital services | News Article | Pulse Today – The letter, first reported by Pulse, warned she warned the decision to impose the hospital changes without the support of the local CCG ‘threatened the whole ethos of clinical commissioning’. Yesterday the TSA acknowledged the reservations of Lewisham CCG, but went ahead approved the plans to close the A&E.;In the email, Dr Zarifa wrote: ‘We are a year or so dealing with a mega trust, Barts Health. There has been a total disconnect between us and the local Newham site, all the good clinical working relationships and local knowledge are lost.