The Independent reports that Department of Health estimates “show £616.6 million accounted for in possible redundancy costs for 2011/12”. Sounds like a potential avenue for local digging…
So here’s a quick advanced search for “redundancy costs” 2011/12 site:nhs.uk – can you adapt it to find a story?
And can you find the original DoH data?
The BMJ reports on the announcement of plans to “remove incentives for general practices to have “open but full” patient lists”. It explains:
“Currently if a practice wants to close its patient list and stop accepting new patients it risks losing the right to provide additional and enhanced services. As a result some practices keep their list open but stop accepting new patients, declaring their list “open but full.”
“This term is not legally recognised within the contractual arrangements for GPs and is confusing to patients, the health department has said.
“… The department also plans to give practices more say over the closure period and allow practices to reopen their lists when they choose, subject to a notice period. However, practices will no longer be able to open or close their lists according to growth or contraction of their patient population, the so called “ping pong” arrangements.
GPs’ patient lists are an issue we’ve covered previously on HMI Health. In September we published data on patient lists (we now have national data covering 4 years) and in January we profiled the One GP’s Protest blog, which talked about the problems with registration policy and the move to remove boundaries to GP practices, the scheme which these announcements are intended to support.
If you want to help investigate either patient lists or boundaries, get in touch.
The Department of Health have just published a summary of responses to their consultation on proposed duty of co-operation regulations. Continue reading
Here’s an example of where a little knowledge of jargon can give you a useful lead in finding data.
The Eastbourne Herald report on an FOI-led investigation they have done into “easily avoidable mistakes, known in the health service as Never Events”:
“BUNGLING NHS staff removed incorrect teeth and carried out a biopsy on the wrong part of a patient’s body as part of a catalogue of errors in 2010 and 2011.
“…the Herald FOI found there were seven such incidents between October 2010 and November 2011.
“They included wrong hip surgery, a piece of medical equipment known as a protoscope left inside a patient’s body and a failure to remove a throat pack following dental surgery. There was also a biopsy on the wrong part of someone’s body and a guidewire left in a patient after staff fitted a central venus pressure line.”
A quick advanced search for “Never events” filetype:xls site:nhs.uk brings up a number of spreadsheets with data you can access without an FOI.
Can you do anything with it?
Tip: try changing site:nhs.uk to your local NHS websites, or try changing filetype:xls to filetype:pdf for reports.
If you’re trying to trace a document trail or identify who is accountable for a particular decision, it’s essential to understand the structure of the health service.
The way the National Health Service is set up in England (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be dealt with in future posts) can be complex but it is relatively simple once you understand how each department works.
As the structure is now you have the Department of Health (DoH), led by the Secretary of State for Health, who in turn leads DoH ministers. The DoH funds ten strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), who are responsible for 152 Primary Care Trusts (PCTS), which in turn provide hospitals, mental health trusts, ambulance trusts, GP practices, dental practices, pharmacies which will also cover sectors such as primary care service, Foundation trusts, NHS trusts, private companies and charities.
The new proposed structure for April 2013 will look slightly different as the Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities will be replaced by NHS Commissioning groups, which are constructed of 200+ Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) that will be led by GPS who will oversee and manage the community, as well as acting as representatives for the boards such as NHS trusts, Foundation trusts, private companies etc.
There will also be a new feature, which will be added to the NHS in England, will be the new group Healthwatch England.
A national body representing the views, opinions of the people who use health and social care services, ot will represent a large network of local Healthwatch groups (taken over by LINK), which will be funded by local authorities.
It is claimed that these Healthwatches will help improve the services from the views of patients and carers during local commissioning decisions, the purpose being to make them run more efficiently, fairly and smoothly.
In December 2011 the Department of Health published an ‘organogram’. This is a database system which shows detailed info on the structure and costs of the department of health staff posts i.e. senior posts and costs of junior staff of the organisation as at 5 December 2011.
For example: the senior posts spreadsheet lists a variety of job titles such as private secretary, senior communications manager, executive assistant, Business manager, HR officer, press and media officer, and finance manager.
These all report to the overall professions such as Operational delivery, communications, human resources, informational technology, Policy, Internal audit, Informational Technology, Knowledge and Information manager etc.
Knowing where different roles report to can save you a lot of time in identifying who you need to approach in asking questions.
The junior posts (CSV) are responsible for different functions within the department such as leadership management, Internal audit efficiency strategy officers, Policy research programmes, PR, HR roles, NHS communication etc.
All junior posts report to the senior posts and the Department of Health, which covers money and costs.
Can you add anything? Or are there areas that need expanding or clarifying? Please let us know.
Here’s a useful news source to follow if you’re interested in the industry around health: Health Investor covers “important political and business developments” in the health sector, profiles major players, and reports on the deals being made.
There’s also a database of those deals (described as an “archive” on the navigation) but you need to be a subscriber to access that and some of the more in-depth content. At £400 per year you may need to find a friend or a library that subscribes – there’s also a “Free trial” that includes a “restricted web pass”…
Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on using the data protection act to access information about yourself, including mentions in internal correspondence or other files.
As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate Health, Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on using the Data Protection Act to access information about yourself, including mentions in internal correspondence or other files.
The Liberal Conspiracy blog claims that despite losing a vote on the issue last year, plans to “radically reform” abortion counselling services will result in barring “independent organisations such as BPAS from offering abortion counselling to women”. It continues:
“They won’t touch MSI [Maries Stopes International] but BPAS is on its way out. They’ve already stitched it up” [says a source]
“The changes are expected to be made through what is called secondary legislation.”
This is a relatively straightforward issue to watch if you’re interested – follow the key players and watch out for the legislation.
Stumbled across on the Department of Health website, this statement:
The Permanent Secretary and Principal Accounting Officer at the Department of Health (DH) is accountable to Parliament for the proper use of the resources allocated to the Department. Continue reading
