Lowdown 100 – our recent content

It’s hard to know how NHS management and staff are supposed to interpret the hugely confusing barrage of statements and policy announcements from Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting and NHS England boss Jim Mackey. It’s not at all clear what they want to come out of the latest disruptive changes  A massive process

The government has consistently pledged to “hold the door wide open” to private providers, to help tackle the waiting lists, but usage is declining, with the NHS increasing its work rate  Independent sector (IS) elective activity for the NHS has fallen 12% from its July 2025 peak, using a 4-month rolling average to even out

Consultant psychiatrists are being pushed to ‘breaking point’ by unmanageable workloads, according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, whose latest census reveals one in seven consultant posts are vacant in England (748 out of 5,193 consultants). The 14% of unfilled posts represents an increase from 10% in 2021 and 6% in 2015. The whole picture

The drive to remove the US company Palantir from the NHS in the UK ramped up in the last few weeks, with the release of a briefing by the health justice charity Medact. The report, backed by doctors, lawyers, patients and human rights groups from the No Palantir in the NHS  campaign, including the Good

by Dr Steve Taylor, GP co-lead, Doctors Association UK I’ve been a GP since 1993 and most of that time have been a partner in a suburban practice in north Manchester. There have been many Governments, ups and downs of funding, different pressures, but one thing remains: the need for patient care. In my training

By Brenda Allan, Keep Our NHS Public  In late November, Keep Our NHS Public (KONP)’s primary care conference brought together patients, GPs, academics and campaigners to prioritise the key changes needed to rescue the service, and how to campaign effectively to achieve them. The government pays lip service to restoring the family doctor and prevention,

Government claims last December that they were on track to save a colossal £17 billion from NHS “efficiencies” over the next three years seem to be more than slightly over-optimistic, according to the latest Lowdown survey of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and trusts in the North West of England. Two of the three North West

A long and dogged campaign by Keep Our NHS Public North East demanding information on the state of outsourced sexual health services has culminated in Newcastle City Council ending a 4-year contract early – and bringing in-person services back into the NHS. NHS-provided sexual health services had run successfully in Newcastle for 70 years (and

Last month, over 150,000 patients, almost one in three (30.4%) of those requiring emergency admission in England’s hospitals, had waited over 12 hours from arrival before they were placed in a bed, according to the latest NHS statistics. Royal College of Emergency Medicine President Dr Ian Higginson told a recent Commons Health and Social Care

NHS England has asked for nearly 300 patients to be moved from a mental health hospital run by St Andrew’s Healthcare in Northampton due to safety concerns for the patients. The letter from NHS England, published online noted that the move was needed because: “we still do not have adequate assurance that patient safety is

For the last few week or so Wes Streeting has seemed to be preoccupied with distancing himself from his links with Peter Mandelson, and trying to preserve his credibility as a possible leadership challenger in the Labour Party. But Mandelson is not the only dodgy New Labour acquaintance to have hampered Streeting’s standing. One-time Health

Since 2019, demand for ADHD diagnosis has rocketed, and referral rates quickly outstripped NHS service capacity. Waiting times increased substantially, with reports of several years’ wait in some areas. The Right to Choose policy, which allows NHS patients to access treatment from private providers if they wish, has facilitated large-scale referrals to private companies funded

A new document on the state of play in England’s NHS is sounding the alarm on Labour’s vague “10 Year Plan,” which was eventually published in July, a year after they had taken office, and to less than fulsome applause. The 80-page “Impact Statement; the 10 Year Health Plan for England” was published last month

As ministers weigh up the options for using private capital to build some of the new “neighbourhood health centres” and to finance the delayed “new hospitals programme,” recent revelations about three older PFI schemes remind us of the long-term costs. 1. England’s first PFI hospital ends contract early Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary, the first hospital completed under

ICB WATCH: How bad are delayed discharges in your area? What are delayed discharges? Many patients are ready to leave the hospital each month but can't because the services they need afterwards are unavailable, such as social care, home care, or a space in a residential home. While they wait, new patients cannot secure a

News reports trumpeting the reduction of England’s waiting list back to below 7.4 million (a reduction of 1.2%) were largely drowned out of media attention by a wave of “critical incidents” in which hospitals in Surrey, Kent, Warwickshire, two in Nottinghamshire, and Stoke on Trent admitted they could not cope with demand for emergency care.

After months of pressure from ministers to aggressively reduce deficits while simultaneously addressing the waiting list, NHS leaders are now facing a confusing shift in messaging from Health Secretary Wes Streeting who has accused some NHS trusts of going too far in their cost-cutting efforts. Streeting’s latest remarks came in a speech on NHS reform

As winter has set in, ITV reports have been predictably focused on the proliferation of “corridor care” in England’s NHS. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has wrung his hands and ensured NHS England and his Department of Health and Social Care state their opposition to corridor care. But the promise to solve this problem by 2029

Back in January 2023, as the traditional winter crisis gripped the NHS, worsened by the additional post-COVID backlog of waiting list patients, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (remember him?) promised the NHS would be investing to open an additional 5,000 front-line (general and acute (G&A) beds. When he spoke, the NHS had just over 100,000 G&A

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has argued that to free up beds to speed the flow of patients through Emergency Departments and empty hospital corridors of stranded patients would require a drive to discharge 60% of the patients who have been assessed as medically fit, and with ‘no criteria to reside’ in an

The NHS in England has for most of 2025 been focused on plans to cut spending to fit the limited budget – and this means wiping out a projected £6.6 billion deficit for 2025/26 – almost 4% of its £167bn allocation. By any previous comparison, this is a very large cutback to make. Barring substantial

News of plans to save money by cutting staff in NHS trusts and foundation trusts began to emerge in the spring, but has continued through November. From a Lowdown survey, we have identified examples of Trusts where the financial squeeze is tightening, and the effect on services is becoming clear. Among the varied examples, University

Last month a report from Age UK, ‘The Longest Wait,’ highlighted the extraordinary growth of delays in treatment for older patients requiring emergency admission to hospital. Its summary makes shocking reading.  There has been a 525-fold increase in the number of instances of corridor care (also known as “trolley waits”) of 12 hours or more

Social care systems in three regions of England are being deprived of millions of pounds as private companies extract large profits, with much of it going to firms owned by private equity or based in tax havens. Analysis in a new report by charity Reclaiming Our Regional Economies found that private care companies operating care

Resident doctors’ strikes are happening for reasons beyond pay. While Wes Streeting says there can be no better than a 2.5% pay rise in 2026—below inflation—this weakens the idea that ministers want to restore doctors’ pay to its former value. The real issue is deeper: growing doctor unemployment, fewer training opportunities, and the added stress

District nursing in England is in a “dire state” and unless the situation is addressed the government’s vision in the 10 year plan of more NHS care in the community is unachievable, warn the Nuffield Trust in a new report.  A failure to invest in district nursing services over many years has left it in

Care minister Stephen Kinnock has joined Wes Streeting in cranking up hostility to GPs who have pointed out that the latest targets for maintaining online access to GP practices every weekday from 8:00 AM to 6:30 PM—outlined in the 2025/26 GP contract—are costly and unrealistic. Kinnock (in a since-deleted ill-tempered social media post) even urged

Trust Total backlog deficit (£m) Biggest issue(s) Imperial College Healthcare 902 St Mary’s £296m; Charing Cross £425m; Hammersmith Hospital £132m Guy’s and St Thomas’ FT 532 Guy’s 131m; St Thomas’ £308m Barts 523 Newham General £235m, Whipps Cross £167m London NW Healthcare 463 Northwick Park £304m, Ealing Hospital £155m Nottingham University Hospitals 443 Nottingham City

The backlog maintenance bill for England’s NHS has soared yet again to a new high of almost £16 billion, a staggering increase of 166% from the £6 billion estimated figure when The Lowdown first started in early 2019. By 2021, it had risen by 50% to £9 billion. In 2022, it reached £10.2bn. With the Tory government’s infamous policy of ‘austerity’ in

For the first time, NHS England has put a price tag on the financial burden of delayed hospital discharges, revealing a staggering £220 million cost in September 2025. This figure comes as the health service grapples with growing pressures, where patients deemed medically fit to leave are left waiting for discharge. While NHS England’s calculation

The Trump administration, which began by announcing its decision to leave the World Health Organisation (WHO) and followed up by driving a wrecking ball through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), pulling out of UN bodies and slashing funding for vaccination and health research, has gone from bad to worse since taking office in

The USA’s federal government has been shut down for six weeks due to a deadlock in Congress over planned budget cuts, leaving thousands of federal workers unpaid and endangering healthcare coverage for the poorest families. The budget changes threaten to slash Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over ten years, starting in two years’ time, and

One of the reasons ministers appear to have decided that they need the Department for Health and Social Care to take over complete control of the NHS and eliminate NHS England is, according to the Health Service Journal, because: “the [Labour] team see more and more voters paying to go private, and honestly believe the

A programme that successfully reduced NHS medicine costs and improved patient safety has been forced to close due to a lack of funding, just as NHS medicine costs appear set to rise sharply. The National Polypharmacy Programme, established by doctors and pharmacists in April 2022 and operated by the NHS’s Health Innovation Network (HIN), aimed

One consistent thread running through the Government’s proposed NHS reorganisation is a reduction in local accountability to the communities served by NHS bodies. The cutbacks in Integrated Care Board (ICB) running costs involve a wholesale process of ICB mergers that in many cases result in even larger geographical areas being run by a single body,

So it’s official: the rumours of Treasury refusal to pay up the costs of redundancy and early retirement payments for staff whose jobs were to be axed in the planned abolition of NHS England (NHSE) and the halving of staff numbers employed by England’s 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) were true. Back in June, the Health

privatisation Accountablility March 31, 2026 Palantir, the controversy, the contracts and the campaign against the FDP The drive to remove the US company Palantir from the NHS in the UK ramped up in the last few… Read More Mental health March 11, 2026 Patients to be moved from “unacceptable” independent mental health hospital NHS England

Major issues have come to light around the procurement process for a new mental health service in Mid and South Essex. A report from the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel (IPCPP) found that the process, which led to the private company Vita Health being awarded the contract in May 2025 by Mid and South

Labour’s 10-year plan, published in July (seriously weakened by a lack of funding and an effective implementation strategy), promised to publish “easy-to-understand league tables, starting this summer, that rank providers against key quality indicators”. This seems to be the answer to a question that is almost never asked by patients (who for the most part

New figures published earlier this month show the extent to which some Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have increased their use of the private sector since Labour took office last July, and the extent to which a minority of ICBs have become much more dependent on private providers than others. Some readers may be surprised to

Mental health patients are waiting nearly 12 times longer than those needing physical health treatment, despite Labour’s manifesto pledge to give both ‘the same attention and focus’ – raising questions about the government’s commitment to one of its central health promises. Labour’s 2024 manifesto says: “right at the core of our mission will be a

NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey seems confused. On September 19 he sent out a boisterous, upbeat circular to chief executives and chairs of all 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), trusts and foundation trust, which began by asserting that progress since April “has been astonishing.”  Aside from some dodgy claims about (minimal) progress on waiting times “in electives,

After months of dispute, the government has decided to bring an end to the farce of NHS Trusts forming wholly owned subsidiary companies – subcos – to avoid tax and to threaten staff terms and conditions.  In an announcement sent to all Trusts by NHS England’s ‘Financial Reset and Accountability Director’ Glen Burley (previously a

University Hospital Dorset (UHD) NHS Foundation Trust based in Bournemouth and Poole has launched a tender seeking a private healthcare company as a long-term joint venture partner in order to substantially increase its private work and help pay for its ongoing £550 million refurbishment and upgrade process. In the tender documents, the Trust notes that

Jim Mackey’s September 19 circular to local health chiefs claims England’s NHS has been “continuing to improve waiting times in electives, cancer and for emergency care.” Is this true? It’s a mixed picture. On cancer, there is some good news. Performance on the key 28-day target (“Four Week (28-days) Wait from Urgent Referral to Patient

GPs in England have voted to re-enter dispute with the Government from 1 October, the BMA has announced. The dispute centres around the contract changes set to begin 1 October which will mean GP surgeries have to keep their online systems, telephones and doors open through the core hours of 8am to 6.30pm. At a

BMA leaders have voted to oppose the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS. The vote, at a special meeting of BMA representatives, called on the government for safeguards to GP independent contractor status as well as addressing other concerns around workforce and digital plans.  Doctors have deep concerns that many of proposals in the plan

In late August the release of a report by US senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) on the destruction of hospitals in his home state of Connecticut, and across the US by private equity companies highlights once again the negative effect of this form of investment.  The report documented what happened when three Connecticut hospitals—Waterbury Hospital, Rockville

The government’s recently unveiled 10-Year Health Plan wants to set up to 300 “neighbourhood health hubs.” – local one-stop centres to offer diagnostics, outpatient treatment, mental health support, and preventive services, to relieve pressure on hospitals. To fund the plan, the government is turning to the private sector, but what does history teach us about

The selection process for a provider of primary care services for the Whitehawk surgery in East Brighton “was neither transparent nor fair”, according to the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel (IPCPP). The IPCPP, set up in 2024 to adjudicate disputes about commissioning NHS-funded healthcare services, has now told the Sussex Integrated Care Board (ICB)

In an attempt to rein in the private providers of ophthalmology services, NHS England has just launched a consultation to reduce tariff prices for three of the most common procedures.  The proposed changes could result in 20 independent sector hospitals losing a total of £64m, with NHS providers gaining a similar amount, according to the

In a controversial move, the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care Board (STWICB) has announced the termination of its contract with Shropdoc, a local not-for-profit organization run by GPs, for out-of-hours GP services. The contract will now be awarded to Medvivo, a for-profit subsidiary of the multinational Health Hero group, backed by the Eight Roads

A government-commissioned Leng Review, recently published, has reignited the debate over physician associates (PAs) in the NHS, proposing new ways of working, but it does not support calls to abolish the role.   Key Findings There is insufficient high-quality evidence on safety and outcomes, and no convincing reasons to abolish the roles of AA or PA;

The public announcement of at least 430 jobs to be axed and some wards closed in Nottingham University Hospitals Trust was bad enough news for the 2.5 million patients in its huge East Midlands catchment area – but it could be worse. NUH chief executive Anthony May has told local Keep Our NHS Public campaigners

Reaction to the NHS ten-year plan concludes that it “fails to live up to the promises” and lacks ambition when it comes to moving from illness to prevention, one of the government’s three fundamental shifts in how the NHS works.’  Matthew Bazeley-Bell, Deputy Chief Executive, Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), noted: “this was the

John Lister looks more closely at some of the key proposals and ideas in the Ten Year Plan Foundation Trusts When these bodies were first launched back in 2004 FT status was only open to the top-rated ‘3-star trusts’ – already the wealthiest and best-performing.  They are now to be to reinvigorated and reinvented, with

Labour’s delayed and much vaunted Ten Year Plan for the NHS, Fit for the Future, has 150-plus pages rammed full of ideas, some good, some bad – but barely a word on how any of them are to be implemented, and not one word on how social care can be developed to keep pace with

The leading health management journal, the Health Service Journal, has now seen a draft of Labour’s long-awaited 10-year Plan for the NHS, and pronounced it “a mess.” We might have guessed as much from the shambolic changes of direction and contradictory announcements in the last few months. But what is especially troubling is that despite

While many will applaud the government’s decision to set up a rapid review of maternity safety, it is taking place while the future staffing of maternity care is being put at risk by short sighted policies and spending constraints on local trusts. After nearly one year in office, Labour ministers have abysmally failed to tackle

The plan for urgent and emergency care services for 2025/26, unveiled in early June by the Department of Health and Social Care and the soon-to-be-abolished NHS England, is a very strange document. Despite the attempts to strike a positive note in many of the official press releases, and the assurances of NHS England CEO Sir

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), which has noted that the Government’s urgent and emergency care services plan for 2025/26 contains “some good and some bad,” has expressed concern about one important target, to: “Reduce the number of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission or discharge from an emergency department compared to 2024/25,

The announcement of 15 new mental health units, in itself potentially positive news, contradicts the announcement only days earlier of ten pilot specialist mental health crisis centres being set up around the country. There’s no denying an urgent need for more capacity to ensure that people with mental health needs who attend emergency departments get

The relentless pressure of calls that deal with life-changing injuries is taking a major psychological toll on NHS 999 staff, who are quitting and suffering burnout, according to a new report from UNISON. The report, launched at UNISON’s Liverpool conference 17 June, highlights the high turnover rates among call handlers, with more than a quarter

The NHS is widely seen as having received a generous settlement in the recent spending review, compared to the settlements for other departments, such as policing and education. The settlement covers from 2026/27 to 2028/29 and gives the DHSC an overall 2.8% average annual increase in department spending, but within this NHS England, which covers

It was widely reported as a ‘generous’ settlement for the NHS in the spending review, compared to other departments such as policing and education. However, there are numerous calls on this funding and painful compromises ahead. Top line figures: The Department of Health and Social Care budget will rise by 2.8% on average from 2026/27

Just weeks ahead of the promised publication of a new 10-year Plan for the NHS in England even those closest to the process seem unclear on what it might contain. A recent article by the chief executive of a non-profit outfit known as Curia, which claims to be relatively well informed, tells us the Plan will involve:

Nearly one million patients in England waited over a month for their scan results in 2024, marking a 28% increase from the previous year, according to data published by the Royal College of Radiology.  This surge occurred despite NHS spending on private teleradiology services reaching £216 million, a 24% rise from 2023 and more than

For years, governments have failed to meet targets to recruit enough GPs, but now trained doctors are struggling to find posts. The reason it seems is not an excess of doctors but chronic underfunding, workforce policy decisions, and a significant lack of investment in healthcare infrastructure. The scale of the problem is striking: a BMA

It is only a small increase, 20,000 more added to a waiting list that had fallen for months in a row to 7.4 million: but it’s a warning that the government’s changes are tilting the NHS back in the wrong direction. The commitment to achieve the 92% target for patients starting treatment within 18 weeks

The care of the thousands of people with dementia is being compromised by a shortage of staff in both adult social care and in the NHS, and a lack of understanding of the needs of those living with dementia, according to a new report by the CQC. The report, based on engagement with people living

A newly unveiled NHS Blueprint signals a significant organisational shake-up aimed at reducing operating costs and restructuring functions within local health systems in England. Tens of thousands of job losses will result to make way for the government’s new ambitions, but how will it help fix rising waiting lists and falling standards?  What is the ICB Blueprint?

More than two months on from the government’s announcement in the spring statement that they would continue with and intensify the previous (Tory) government’s attacks on disability benefits, and the subsequent publication of Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall’s Pathways to Work green paper, proposing a £4.5 billion cut in Personal Independence Payments (PIP), there

Social care providers will no longer be able to recruit staff from abroad via the health and care worker visa as part of the Labour government’s reform of immigration outlined in the white paper published 12 May.  Instead, social care providers will have to use domestic staff, people on other immigration visas or the pool

Legal loopholes let Trust bosses push through privatisation – An introduction by John Lister, followed by Andy Benson’s account of the legal battle to prevent the outsourcing of non-clinical staff in a North Essex NHS Trust As NHS trusts draw up plans to axe large numbers of “non-clinical” staff in efforts to contain spending within

In running hospitals, NHS Trusts pay VAT on goods and services but cannot claim any VAT back. This has always been the case and is accounted for in how the Trusts receive their funding. Then, Trust leaders discovered that under special HMRC Regulations, providers of services outsourced by the NHS can reclaim VAT under circumstances defined

At the start of the year, Lowdown was critical of the self-congratulatory tone of a Wes Streeting speech to Labour Party members just before Christmas, in which he also (correctly) insisted that ministers should be judged by what they deliver. Perhaps because of this, Mr Streeting was rather less triumphalist in his recent speech to

The Lowdown has heard that some health workers are being warned to brace themselves for “radical” proposals in the government’s 10-year plan, scheduled for June publication, and that it will centre on “neighbourhood health.” This helps explain a recent extraordinary 3,000-word feature by Health editor Laura Donnelly in the Telegraph, the chosen platform for so

The recent agreement for two major US private equity companies, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Stonepeak, to acquire the UK property company Assura for £1.61bn ($2.09bn), has once again highlighted the involvement of private equity in the NHS. Assura specialises in healthcare property with more than 600 health care buildings, including many GP surgeries and

The rapid pace of change and abrupt lurches in direction of England’s NHS leadership at national level are creating widespread confusion, along with the demoralisation that flows from impending job losses and yet another major top-down reorganisation. After Keir Starmer’s surprising intervention last month NHS England (NHSE) itself is set to axe half its staff

 Forty years of failure – Private sector contracting and its impact on the NHS, by Dr John Lister, offers a scathing critique of the NHS’s privatisation experiments. Each chapter peels back layers of policy missteps and their consequences. ​ The report begins in the Thatcher era, when ideology-led policy dominated and outsourcing was sold as

A round-up by John Lister of the financial situation in East of England Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), drawing on the latest available Integrated Care Board (ICB) papers as of March 24. What ICBs must deliver NHS England’s ‘Operational Planning Guidance, ‘ which outlines the expectations for all of England’s 42 ICBs in 2025/26, states that

The Spring Budget offered little additional support for the NHS or social care, as the government leaned on existing commitments around workforce, technology upgrades, and efficiency drives. What will be the impact? No New Funding to Boost NHS Capacity Sally Gainsbury, Senior Policy Analyst of the Nuffield Trust, confirmed that the day-to-day health budget is

Subsidiary companies (Sub Co), spun off from the NHS, are back in favour as part of the effort to save money in the NHS. Sir Jim MacKey, NHS England’s transition CEO, told a recent meeting of health leaders that all NHS trusts should transfer support staff to wholly-owned subsidiary companies to reduce costs. Sources told

The scale of the government’s structural overhaul of the NHS is proving to be far greater than initially thought, with up to 30,000 jobs now at risk. With internal battles to make savings and fill capacity gaps, NHS leaders are already turning towards the management consultancy firms whose business is booming. The most recent figures

Last week’s shock announcement of the big top-down reorganisation of the NHS, with the decision to scrap NHS England (announced just three days after Health Secretary Wes Streeting called for its staffing to be halved), seems to have diverted a lot of news media from the ongoing problems at the front line in hospitals and

Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) strapped for cash continue to see time and money disappear on lengthy procurement processes open to private companies and legal challenges. In recent weeks, two large-scale procurement processes have hit the buffers. In North West England, a group of ICBs halted the procurement of non-emergency patient transport (NEPTS) due to legal

A massive new reorganisation of the NHS has been under way since the end of last year: it took a further lurch forward and hit news headlines on March 13 with Sir Keir Starmer’s surprise announcement that NHS England is to be abolished. Throughout the process the hand of Health Secretary Streeting and his aides

By Irwin Nash and John Lister Hundreds of non-clinical support staff are being forced out of NHS employment by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) by a process that appeared all along to be secretive and dishonest. Back at the beginning of April last year the main union, UNISON, reacted strongly to

NHS Devon is the most financially challenged ICS in England. In June 2024, the chair of the ICB (Integrated Care Board), Sarah Wollaston, resigned, saying she felt unable “to sign off on a further cut” because the “elastic had already stretched too far.” She said she was “not happy” with new plans promising “unachievable” results

Overview - NHS Devon ICB - Jan 2025 meeting - NHS Devon is currently the most financially challenged Integrated Care System (ICS) in England. - Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the Integrated Care Board (ICB), resigned in June 2024, citing concerns over “unachievable” plans that may lead to unacceptable patient consequences. Public Meetings and Transparency

What is it? The phrases ‘delayed discharge’ from the hospital and ‘patients that no longer meet criteria to reside’ are frequently used in relation to hospital problems. Both refer to patients who are well enough to leave the hospital but have not yet been discharged. How big is the problem? 3 Key points The latest

Karl Marx warned that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” However, he was referring to similar events, not the literal repetition of the same failed policies by the same party (and several of the same people) 25 years later. But that seems to be what Keir Starmer and his Health Secretary Wes

The 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England that are responsible for planning, commissioning, and funding NHS services also have a legal duty to involve people in their area in these processes.  The Health and Care Act 2022 states that citizens, their carers and representatives have the right to be involved in the planning of

The decision by Bath and NE Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) to award a contract for the provision of all community care services across the ICB area to a private equity-owned company – HCRG Care Group – is continuing to cause some controversy.  The ICB managed to award the contract without a

According to headline figures from a report by private health market analysts LaingBuisson, the private medical insurance (PMI) business is booming. Almost one in eight people, or 4.68 million, have some form of PMI, but does this figure give us an accurate picture of the trends? The report covers up to the end of 2023 and

John Lister comments on the government’s 2025 mandate to NHS England and NHS England’s delayed 2025/26 Priorities and Operational Planning Guidelines With local and national media headlines again and again flagging up the long delays of patients and ambulances at hospital emergency departments, delays endangering the lives of patients waiting too long for cancer care,

The Trump agenda is not all about gagging scientists and people fighting against inequality: the aim is to minimise state spending, not least on health care, to maximise the possibility of tax cuts for Trump’s backers, the super-rich. But slashing government health spending, and in particular cutting the already restricted Medicaid program which provides for

Mental health services continue to be under-resourced, leading to long waits and poor care. This week, MPs called for urgent national reform of the NHS’s eating disorder services if they are to address the UK’s escalating eating disorder crisis. In the report The Right to Life: People with Eating Disorders Being Failed – the All

Wes Streeting may have sneaked out his announcement during Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20, hoping attention would be focused elsewhere, but it’s clear that the new timetable for building new hospitals is bad news for almost all areas of the NHS. Of course, the underlying problem was the 14 years of austerity policies