Taking back control of personal health budgets – NHE
Colin Royle, director of Peoplehub, explains why third party providers for personal health budgets can often be the best option for patients. When people first discuss the option of receiving a personal health budget, it’s not uncommon for questions to be raised. Many aspects sound appealing to individuals, such as the ability…

Ministers accused of ‘preventing real NHS devolution’ – Health Service Journal
Ministers have been accused of “preventing devolution of healthcare budgets and powers” in a new report.

FTSE 100 companies’ ‘top talent’ could fill NHS board roles – Health Service Journal
NHS Improvement is courting more than a dozen FTSE 100 companies to source new non-executive directors to sit on NHS trust boards, HSJ has learned.

NICE recommends first treatment to be cut from new Cancer Drugs Fund – NHE
New NICE draft guidance said the body does not recommend prescribing brentuximab vedotin, a drug used to treat a form of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that is available on the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) list. The guidance, which said there isn’t enough evidence to recommend the old CDF drug, comes just a few days after the reinvented Fund…

Trust plans night time A&E closure after reaching ‘crisis point’ – Health Service Journal
United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust has set out plans to temporarily close Grantham Hospital’s emergency department at night time because of staff shortages and patient safety concerns.

Trust A&E night closure over staffing crisis ‘disappointing, yet unsurprising’ – NHE
Plans have been put forward to temporarily reduce the opening hours of Grantham Hospital’s emergency department, including a nigh closure, as staffing shortages have reached a “crisis point”. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) said it doesn’t have enough doctors to fill shifts in three departments…

Crisis-hit hospital trust may close Grantham A&E at night – BBC
Hospital bosses are considering shutting an accident and emergency department in Grantham at night to combat a staffing crisis.

Trusts spend 25 times more on locum fees than on recruiting for permanent posts – BMJ
NHS acute trusts in England are each spending nearly 25 times as much on locum agency fees as they spend on recruiting doctors to permanent positions, figures obtained by BMJ Careers show. Information obtained through freedom of information requests showed that, on average in 2015, trusts spent £1.4 million on locum agency fees and £55 000 on recruiting doctors to permanent positions. The data also showed that each trust spent an average of £5.8m on employing locum doctors.

Plans to ban GP referrals will ‘worsen long-term costs and patient backlog’ – NHE
Suspending all non-urgent referrals to hospitals made by GPs in order to ease pressure during winter months will only damage public trust and create a backlog of patients needing to be seen come springtime, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has said in response to controversial financial recovery proposals from a Merseyside CCG. In its…

IT interoperability
The King’s Fund has published a blog focusing on IT challenges in the NHS.  This blog, by an Economic and Data Analyst, highlights the challenge of interoperability, the ability of IT systems and software applications to work efficiently together.  The blog concludes that while much of the general public embraces the advances in information technology, from app-filled smartphones to fitness-monitoring wristwatches, the NHS trails behind.