NEWS


Wave one CCGs submit their authorisation applications All 35 CCGs in ‘wave one’ of


the authorisation process have submitted their applications as expected, the NHS Commissioning Board Authority has confirmed.


They all hit the deadline of the July 2, with deadlines for the next three waves happening over the coming months until November 2012.


Dame Barbara Hakin, National Director for Commissioning Development


at the Board


Authority, said: “I am delighted that the CCG authorisation process is beginning on schedule and that we have received all 35 applications in full from the CCGs in wave one. I wish to thank CCGs for their energy and commitment; all CCGs are working incredibly hard to set themselves up as effective and safe health commissioning organisations by April 2013 and it is inspiring to see the process get off to a good start.


“I want to emphasise strongly that


all the authorisation waves are equal and there is no difference between a CCG in wave one or wave four in terms of competence. Proposed CCGs in each wave will continue to develop throughout the year as they take on increasing responsibilities, and could have conditions set irrespective of the wave in which they are placed.”


The NHS Commissioning Board must assure that CCGs are able to commission safely, use their budgets responsibly, and exercise their functions to improve quality,


Trusts required £1bn emergency funds to pay staff


£1bn of bailout funds were given to struggling trusts in the past six years, the National Audit Office has revealed. At a time when the NHS is collectively trying to achieve savings of £20bn, 30 hospital trusts recorded a combined deficit of over £300m last year.


The Department of Health gave four NHS foundation trusts and 17 other NHS trusts £1bn emergency funding to pay staff from 2006 to 2012, a new report shows.


for healthcare with the size of efficiency gains required within the NHS”.


Additionally, 51% of PCTs said they were concerned about the financial future of hospitals. The NAO stated it was “hard to see how continuing to give financial support to organisations in difficulty will be a sustainable way of reconciling growing demand


Margaret Hodge MP, chair of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, said: “It’s shocking that over the past year alone the amount the DH has had to spend on bailing out trusts in financial difficulty rose by 333%; up from £76m in 2011-12 to £253m in 2011-12.” Health commentator Paul Corrigan suggested the


DH will no longer be so willing to bail out struggling providers, as the South London Healthcare decision shows. He wrote: “This week it became very clear that the Secretary of State’s Inefficient Hospital Fund was not bottomless…week by week we will be seeing more and more of the application of the laws of economics to the NHS. The subsidies that have traditionally been paid to bolster failure will increasingly disappear.”


Monitor report critical of Reforms ‘might mean fewer beds’ – Lansley Hospitals


Peterborough PFI deal Peterborough’s hospital trust, which is likely to need a £50m Government bailout next spring to avoid finishing the year in debt, committed to a “potentially unaffordable PFI” scheme in 2007 despite Monitor’s concerns, a new report shows.


the Peterborough’s


Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (PSHFT), which has massive repayments to cope with under its PFI scheme and finished £45m in deficit in 2011/12 – requiring a £41m DH cash injection – says its five-year recovery plan means it will be close to breaking even by 2017. It says it will not need to go into the kind of special measures seen at South London Healthcare Trust.


Monitor’s new report says: “On 12 January 2007 Monitor wrote


8 | national health executive Jul/Aug 12 “may see wards


to Peterborough stating that it believed the long term affordability of the proposal to be in significant doubt. However, Peterborough committed to


scheme in


June 2007. Monitor’s power to prevent


Board


from committing to a potentially unaffordable PFI in 2007 was very limited.”


The trust is predicting a £54 deficit by the end of next March, but its chief executive Dr Peter Reading says he is confident it will keep finding “temporary measures” to deal with annual deficits until a permanent solution is worked out.


He claimed that while hospitals would not “necessarily” close, wards and beds may be shut down as more care is carried out in the community.


Lansley told LBC Radio: “If you have more services provided in the community, you will have less happening in hospitals. That may mean wards shutting down, that might mean fewer beds. What we’re looking for is to think really good clear radical thoughts about how we can design better services.”


closures” as the NHS changes the way it provides healthcare and delivers services, health secretary Andrew Lansley has admitted. But he added that the changes will lead to “better services”.


Such service reconfiguration is accepted as a given and even a necessity in health policy circles if the NHS is to cope with rising demand and static budgets without harming patient care, but ministers have traditionally been loath to discuss closures as they can be so politically dangerous.


Labour said the fact that A&Es and maternity wards are closing “one by one” shows that David Cameron’s pre-election pledge of a bare-knuckle fight against hospital closures had been exposed as “yet another cynical promise”.


reduce inequality and deliver improved outcomes within the available resources.


The outcome of wave one is due to be considered by the NHS Commissioning Board in October 2012.


© NHS Confederation


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