Health landscape report: 29 May – 2 June 2023

Official Bodies

NHS Digital

• All recent data releases can be seen here.
• Statistics: Appointments in General Practice, April 2023 [31/5].
• Article: GP practices in England delivered 10% more appointments per working day in the first four months of 2023 compared with the same period in 2019, covered by GPonline [31/5].
• Article: The proportion of the GP workforce aged over 55 has risen sharply since 2015, covered by GP Online [30/5].

Department for Health and Social Care

• Press release: Over one million NHS staff to receive pay rises from today [1/6].
  • Eligible workers on the Agenda for Change contract, which includes nurses, paramedics and 999 call handlers, will receive the pay rise, backdated to April.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

• Report: Understanding the drivers of healthy life expectancy [1/6].

University of Oxford

• Research: Multi-cancer blood test shows real promise in NHS trial [2/6].
  • An NHS trial of a new blood test for more than 50 types of cancer correctly revealed two out of every three cancers in more than 5,000 people who had visited their GP with suspected symptoms.

Policy, think tanks, charities and representative bodies

British Journal of General Practice

• Article: Consequences of the closure of general practices: a retrospective cross-sectional study [1/6].

Institute for Fiscal Studies 

• Report: The distribution of public service spending [31/5].
  • “Health spending is concentrated on older adults, whose position in the income distribution markedly improved between the mid-1990s and early 2010s.
  • “Health spending is higher on those with low incomes and from deprived areas, reflecting patterns of ill health.
  • “Low-income and less-educated people make use of less specialist and preventative care conditional upon their healthcare needs.
  • “There is some evidence that low-income and less-educated people struggle to access health services when funding is constrained.”

Institute of Public Policy Research

• Blog: A New Playbook For Public Service Reform [1/6].

Onward

• Event: A Shot in the Arm: Restoring the UK’s capacity to run clinical trials [7/6].

Nuffield Trust

• Report: Growing problems, one year on: the state of children’s health care and the Covid-19 backlog [1/6].

Polling

YouGov

• Data: How much confidence do you have, if any, in the UK Covid‑19 Inquiry? [1/6].

London Trusts

Barts Health NHS Trust

• Article: Digitising Blood Transfusions [1/6].
  • Barts Health NHS Trust’s transfusion system has already been updated with electronic procedures and remote blood fridges. The final step towards enhancing patient safety and optimising service lies in the implementation of Bedside Electronic Transfusion checks for blood sample collection, labelling, and administration.
• Press release: Whipps Cross redevelopment – an update from Alastair Finney [1/6].

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust 

• Article: New chemotherapy clinics mean young cancer patients are ‘in and out’ within minutes for treatment [1/6].
  • A mum says she is “amazed” by a new chemotherapy service that has proven to be invaluable for young cancer patients and their families.

Social media

Twitter

• The BMA has written to the Chancellor to call for a package of support for GPs to address inflationary pressures and prevent practice closures.
• James Illman, HSJ journalist, sets out the NHS’ outpatient challenge in this thread.