HSJ Health Check

With one working day left before the new financial year, the NHS’s instructions for 2024-25 have finally been published.   HSJ ’s James Illman, Annabelle Collins, and Dave West unpack what's in this year’s guidance and talk more about the sticking points that caused the long delay.

HSJ  revealed this week the cost of building “40 new hospitals” in the NHS has increased by £4bn, so on this episode we dig into what’s driving this and if it will get past the Treasury.    Also this week  – when PFI deals go wrong and how a fire at the Whittington Hospital in north London has led to a High Court case. 

This week we discuss the implications of a long-awaited independent review into a patient safety scandal at Salford Royal Hospital, in which multiple patients were harmed by John Williamson, the former head of the spinal division. We cover why concerns about care quality resurfaced long after the trust concluded its review in 2016 and why it failed to properly investigate at the time.  Also more o...

HSJ Health Check debates the new NHS staff survey results, with trust CEO Matthew Winn, survey expert Chris Graham, and HSJ's Nick Kituno. Some key findings are improved this year, but others reveal a service still struggling to recover from the pandemic. There's also an alarming increase in reports of discrimination. Meanwhile, Matthew and Chris argue there can be no 'quick fixes'...

There has been a huge increase in the proportion of treatments done by the private sector compared to before the pandemic, and for the first time we’ve worked out which parts of the country send most patients to independent hospitals. Also, more on news that NHS capital budgets have been raided to pay for staff pay rises and the cost of strikes. Read our full regional analysis of private sector us...

A controversial new care model has come under fire from trust leaders, who have warned patients and clinicians are coming to harm.    We discuss the concerns surrounding the national roll-out of Right Care, Right Person, and why the emergency services have ended up playing a “high stakes game of chicken”.   Also this week, we discuss NHS England’s ambitions to digitise one in three patient interac...

We talk more about the decimation of England’s national public health unit less than three years after it was created. We cover the motivations behind this, the impact it could have on integrated care systems’ plans and whether Labour will reverse it. Also, the latest on the planning guidance and how its become entangled with the Budget negotiations.  With Dave West, James Illman and Annabelle Col...

This week we discuss a major obstacle in the planning guidance negotiations  –  how high to set the A&E four-hour target. The government is pushing for a new target set at over 80%, while NHS England lobbies for one just one percentage point higher than the current target.  Also this week more on how the risk in emergency care has shifted from ambulances to acute hospitals and the thinking beh...

Two of the most successful NHS hospital chief executives – one current, Glen Burley, and one former, Dame Alwen Williams – join the HSJ Health Check podcast, arguing that the sometimes-contentious spread of the ‘group model’ and joint leadership will keep on spreading. The Foundation Group CEO and former boss of Barts Health Trust – one of the mothers of the hospital group model in the NHS – also...

This week for the first time a study has revealed the number of patients on PIFU pathways has not translated into a significant reduction in follow up appointments.  Also, a governance row across some of the biggest trusts in east London, while a major teaching hospital on the other side of the Thames sees its finances explode. With Ben Clover, Annabelle Collins and James Illman

Dental budgets are being raided by ICSs to fund other services in the middle of an unprecedented access crisis. We cover a broken financial system, a discredited contract and increasing political pressure to fix NHS dentistry. Also we review how NHS England is faring on its pledge to increase overall primary care investment. 

HSJ  recently revealed the dramatic differences in access to specialist medical treatments around the country.    We discuss what’s driving this inequality, who is missing out and what big-city trusts are doing to improve access.   Also, an update on how the NHS coped during the longest ever junior doctor strikes over Christmas and the New Year and why the planning guidance for 2024 is still yet t...

In our final episode of the year we make our predictions for what 2024 could hold for the NHS, including the first integrated care system merger, how the strikes will pan out and manager regulation.    Thanks for listening and we’ll be back in January! 

Three years ago the NHS was the first healthcare system in the world to set an ambition to become net zero, but it struggles to prioritise this in the face of daily operational and financial pressures. This week we discuss in depth the green targets, progress already made and why, despite competing priorities, they should still be high up leaders’ agenda.  Also, an update on what systems are being...

This week we’re joined by Thea Stein, who recently moved into think tank world after nine years running an NHS trust.   We cover her reflections on her time at Leeds Community Healthcare Trust, why she is fed up of “visions” of integrated care and much more interested in the tricky detail, and the radical policies needed to recruit and retain more staff. 

Leaders at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust have been heavily criticised in an independent inquiry into the actions of former maintenance supervisor David Fuller. We cover the mistakes made by the trust that enabled him to abuse hundreds of bodies in its mortuary over 15 years and what the rest of the NHS must do in response to this horrific case. Also, an update on the government’s pay offer t...

US firm Palantir has officially been awarded the lucrative federated data platform deal, which is one of the biggest NHS data projects in recent years.   This week Nick Carding, Joe Talora and Annabelle Collins discuss the controversy surrounding the deal, what the risks and benefits are for the NHS and what’s next in its implementation. 

A trust that gave its name to a controversial A&E policy has seen performance improve significantly, so this week we discuss how North Bristol Trust handled the risks and how quickly its model could spread throughout the NHS.    Also, NHSE chief Amanda Pritchard told MPs this week there has been a ”misunderstanding” about productivity in the NHS - we discuss what’s actually going on behind the...

This week Annabelle and James are joined by Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers. We’re looking ahead to winter and an election year, in which the NHS faces ongoing strikes, stalling progress on waiting lists and challenging finances.  We also cover the damage done by ’short-termism’ and why turnover of trust CEOs is getting worse. 

An increasing number of hospitals are appointing shared CEOs and chairs and with more large ’groups’ being created  – this week we discuss the benefits and drawbacks to this new(ish) way of running things.  We focus on two recent examples - the Barts Health Group in London and University Hospitals of Leicester, which as of this week shares a chair and CEO with two neighbouring trusts. With Ben Clo...

This week we’re joined by Roger Kline, academic and workforce culture consultant, to discuss Steve Barclay’s latest edict ordering the NHS to stop recruiting to equality, diversity and inclusion roles. Was  the letter  just red meat for the Daily Mail or could it do real damage?  We cover NHS England’s response, why the cost-savings argument doesn’t add up, and what's next for EDI roles.  With...

Sir Jim Mackey is moving on from Northumbria Healthcare FT after 18 years and taking the top job at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals FT. This week we discuss what this means for the NHS in the North East and also for NHSE, where he will be leaving his chief operating office role.    And in other people moves, we also cover David Loughton’s retirement from Royal Wolverhampton Trust and Walsall Healthc...

On the podcast this week we bring you highlights and analysis from the Labour party conference in Liverpool. We cover what a backlog recovery drive could look like under a Labour government and how Wes Streeting will take from Blair’s 1997 playbook to ‘underpromise and overdeliver’ on the NHS. 

This week we discuss urgent high-level talks to address the £1bn funding gap - and ask whether strikes are really to blame.   Also this week, has NHS England come off the fence with its latest warning to the BMA?

Nothing is more important than the process of giving birth, but hospitals are increasingly struggling to induce mothers-to-be on time. HSJ has found multiple examples of pregnant women waiting too long for their induction, in what could potentially be a national problem for a hugely challenged area of healthcare. Also this week, we hear why former NHSX CEO Matthew Gould is back in the news and dis...