www.england.nhs.uk\/publication\/refreshing-nhs-plans-for-2018-19\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Surprise, Surprise! NHS Staff Retention is a Problem<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2018Health Services Journal\u2019 has reported that the NHS regulator NHSI is now working with 70 English NHS Trusts trying to improve staff retention. Is this really the role of a regulator one might ask? No doubt some good work is being done here in trying to make up for national cuts in training and education; \u2018enhancing\u2019 retire-and-return \u2013to \u2013work schemes; and promoting flexibility around rotas and career development.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
With 11.4% of nurses leaving London NHS Trusts it might be a good idea for an NHS body to research in detail why this is the case. Anecdotally it seems that nurses are leaving because they are unhappy in their jobs. This is not rocket science.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
However this initiative, if known by front line staff, might just annoy those overworked, understaffed, stressed-out hospital teams. For many of them time off for training and education is but an ageing dream.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s Government\/DoH\/NHS England policies that are leading to staff leaving the NHS. Quality and quantity of service needs to be designed into policies \u2013 it\u2019s not something that can be re-engineered in dysfunctional policies.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
This all seems like trying to wipe an elephant\u2019s bottom with a piece of confetti, when what should be going on is trying to figure out why the animal has chronic diarrhoea and treating that condition in a sustainable fashion.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The NHS London North West Healthcare University Trust and the West London Mental Health NHS Trust have both volunteered to receive this NHSI human resource counselling. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
DLA, PIP, ESA, AA, CA, UC and WCA \u2013 Theory and Practice<\/b><\/p>\n
In this new, coming golden age of cradle to grave care (integrated healthcare and social care) there is acronym soup served up in care and care related benefits. Crudely below I\u2019ve summarised what they seem to be all about and I\u2019ve collected some data on how it is all working out:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
DLA \u2013 \u00a0Disability Living Allowance.<\/span><\/p>\nIntroduced in 1992, it\u2019s money for people who have extra care or mobility needs. DLA can be claimed by under 16s and those who were 65 or over on 8 April 2013. It\u2019s means tested and tax free. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
PIP – Personal Independence Payment<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\nReplaced DLA during 2013 -2015 for those 16 to 65.<\/span><\/p>\nESA – Employment and Support Allowance.<\/span><\/p>\nFor those who can\u2019t work because of illness.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
AA <\/span>– Attendance Allowance.<\/span><\/p>\nMoney for those people over 65 who have care needs and need help with activities of daily living. Not means tested and tax free. <\/span><\/p>\nCA – Carer\u2019s Allowance<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a362.70\/week. It\u2019s means tested and taxable. The people you care for must be receiving DLA, PIP or AA and you must be caring for them at least 35 hours\/week.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
UC – Universal Credit<\/span><\/p>\nUC replaces six means-tested benefits and tax credits \u2013 Jobseeker\u2019s Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit , ESA and Income Support. Announced in 2010 the phased, national rollout began in 2013 and in Ealing in February 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
WCA <\/span>– Work Capability Assessment.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Department of Work and Pensions\u2019 (DWP\u2019s) test as to whether welfare claimants are entitled to sickness benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
+ The Conservative Government\u2019s austerity is hurting or killing the sick and the disabled according to The Canary web site. Between October 2013 and October 2014, 46% of people who previously had DLA either lost money or had their claims stopped under PIP. 164,000 mentally ill people lost their PIP money in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n+ Over \u00a3100 million has been spent on ESA and PIP appeals since October 2015. 87,500 PIP claimants had their decisions changed at mandatory reconsiderations, whilst 91,587 won their appeals at tribunal. In the first half of 2017, 60% of PIP appeals went in the claimant\u2019s favour. In 2017\/18, 68% of ESA appeals were won by claimants.<\/span><\/p>\n+ Between December 2011 and February 2014 almost 90 people a month were dying after the DWP told them they were fir for work. 590 cases of suicide have been linked to WCAs.<\/span><\/p>\n+ We are in the fourth year of UC and we have yet to see a full business case for this huge reform. The original key assertions were that UC would help people back into work and by 2017 save \u00a35.5 billion on annual benefit costs. The original rollout costs were budgeted at \u00a32.2 billion. This has now ballooned to \u00a315.8 billion, the annual cost savings target date moved to 2021, and the UC national coverage will now be completed by late 2022.As with grandiose NHS cost savings programmes, grant funding is always paid out to help with transition. In the case of UC this amounted to \u00a31.5 billion in 2017. However in 2016, the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast that the best annual cost savings by 2021 would only be \u00a31 billion. The notorious six week wait for first payment is soon to be reduced to five weeks. In 2017, 19% of claimants waited longer than six weeks. The Labour Party has made repeated claims that the Government has not provided any evidence to back up its original assertion that UC would help people back into work. However research has shown that UC leaves working families are worse off than under the old system.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Notes from the Trenches and Elsewhere<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
+ CQC has announced that London North West University Healthcare University NHS Trust has performed \u2018worse than expected\u2019 in three core areas of its Maternity services compared to its peers. This is a sad postscript to the closure of the well-performing \u00a0Maternity services at Ealing Hospital in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
+ \u2018Pulse\u2019 Reports that NHS England admits that the national target of recruiting 600 extra GPs from EU countries by 31March 2018 has been\/will be missed by 470<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
+ NHS London North West University Healthcare Trust only recently adopted \u2018University\u2019 into its name. But which University and why? Maybe adding \u2018University\u2019 to your name is felt by NHS branding gurus to add an academic \u2018gloss\u2019 to the organisation. However perusing the 15 person Board I\u2019ve found a Professor David Taube of Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC). Imperial College (IC) seems to have continuing \u2018imperial\u2019 ambitions. Some contrast to my 1960s days at London University when IC folks were largely beer swilling, rugby playing engineers! A recent non-exec recruit to the LNWUHT Board is Ruwan Weerasekera – a Managing Director of the Union Bank of Switzerland. How this fits with healthcare is at best puzzling and at worst worrying.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
+ Meltdown at the Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust (LCHT) in 2014 provides salutary guidance in spotting dysfunctional healthcare leadership. Analyst Richard Vize has unravelled a litany of fear, intolerance, disbelief and insecurity over a four year period. Dr Bill Kirkup carried out an independent review. He identified an inexperienced and bullying leadership obsessed with achieving Foundation Trust status, irrespective of the effect on patients. Two NHSs CCGs and NHS England pushed LCHT to achieve significant savings. In one year LCHT tried to deliver 15% cuts, apparently oblivious to the risks. Appalling treatment of staff led to a collapse in morale and sickness absence rose. Reporting of serious incidents was discouraged. CQC failed to spot the problems and it was only when staff contacted Labour MP Rosie Cooper that alarm bells were rung in Government. The LCHT Chief Executive resigned but has been employed in the NHS ever since. She\u2019s currently on the Betsi Cadwaladr NHS Board in North Wales. LCHT Chair Ms Frances Molloy also resigned and now runs a Liverpool-based charity that has NHS contracts. It would seem that nothing succeeds quite like failure. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
+ An estimated 60,000 people marched through central London on 3 February 2018 in the \u2018NHS in Crisis\u2019 event. It was organised by Health Campaigns Together and The People\u2019s Assembly. British media coverage of the event was poor but Donald Trump publicised it! 54 related events were held on the same day all over England.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESON Presents Written Evidence to NHS NWL Bosses Which Demonstrates that NWL\u2019s SaHF, STP and ACO Ambitions are Unattainable On 6 and 7 February 2018 a submission, written by the Ealing Save Our NHS (ESON) research team, was delivered by hand to the Directors of Finance at NHSI (London) and NHSE (London). These two people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",1024,512,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3-300x150.png",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3-768x384.png",640,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3-1024x512.png",640,320,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",1024,512,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",1024,512,false],"td_0x420":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",840,420,false],"td_80x60":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",80,40,false],"td_100x75":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",100,50,false],"td_180x135":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",180,90,false],"td_238x178":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",238,119,false],"td_265x198":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",265,133,false],"td_300x160":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",300,150,false],"td_300x194":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",300,150,false],"td_300x350":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",300,150,false],"td_341x220":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",341,171,false],"td_341x400":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",341,171,false],"td_511x400":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",511,256,false],"td_537x360":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",537,269,false],"td_640x0":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",640,320,false],"td_640x350":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",640,320,false],"td_681x0":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",681,341,false],"td_681x400":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",681,341,false],"td_741x486":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",741,371,false],"td_1021x580":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",1021,511,false],"mailpoet_newsletter_max":["https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Traveling-in-London-3.png",1024,512,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Eric Leach","author_link":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"ESON Presents Written Evidence to NHS NWL Bosses Which Demonstrates that NWL\u2019s SaHF, STP and ACO Ambitions are Unattainable On 6 and 7 February 2018 a submission, written by the Ealing Save Our NHS (ESON) research team, was delivered by hand to the Directors of Finance at NHSI (London) and NHSE (London). These two people…","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ealingsaveournhs.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}