Second South West social enterprise to close next month – Health Service Journal
A second social enterprise in the South West is to be wound down after it lost its main contract to an NHS trust.

Specialist hospital rated ‘one of the best trusts in England’ – Health Service Journal
Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital Foundation Trust has become the first specialist hospital to be rated as outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, making it one of only eight trusts in the country to achieve the top rating.

Guidance: Health service medical supplies costs – Department of Health
The Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill amends the National Health Service Act 2006 to:

• put beyond doubt that the government can require companies to make payments to control the cost of health service medicines
• enable the government to require companies to reduce the price of an unbranded generic medicine, or to impose other controls on that company’s unbranded medicine, even if the company is in the voluntary scheme (the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme) for their branded medicines
• enable the government to make regulations to obtain information on sales and purchases of health service medicines, medical supplies and other related products from all parts of the supply chain, from manufacturer to pharmacy, for defined purposes

NICE shared Learning
NICE has added the following items to its local practice collection:

• A Critical Evaluation of the implementation of NICE Quality Standard 80 in a specialist Early Intervention Service
• Medicines optimisation peer review: improving prescribing and lowering costs

Formal consultation ‘likely to be needed’ if STPs include hospital closures – NHE
All local health groups have been instructed to involve local people in consultations on their sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) in new guidance from NHS England. Simon Stevens, the CEO of NHS England, promised the guidance would be published in his keynote speech at NHS Expo after campaign group 38 Degrees published a report…

Social care cuts ‘not isolated’ from overstretched NHS, think tanks say – NHE
Elderly patients are increasingly struggling to access medical and social care and facing delayed transfers of care, the King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust have said in a scathing new report. In the past five years, emergency hospital admissions of older people have risen by 18%, compared to 12% for the general population, and 50%…

‘Inadequate’ CCG chief resigns – Health Service Journal
The accountable officer of a troubled clinical commissioning group in the North West has resigned

Seven days in medicine: 7-13 September 2016 – BMJ

• MPs urge government to relax medicinal cannabis laws
• Three in four do not know obesity link to cancer
• Zika – Men and women should practise safe sex for six months
• Health secretary promises “world class” hospital IT
• NHS announces online symptom checker
• Sugar warnings have not reduced children’s consumption
• Sugar industry funded dietary research
• Egg freezing – Scrap 10 year limit, lawyer says
• Junior doctors – NHS chief executive warns over length of strikes
• Statins – Review downplays worries about adverse effects
• Poverty – Charity calls for “new deal” to alleviate poverty by 2030
• Eating disorder – UK’s first “diabulimia” service is launched
• Valve replacement – Risk factors for endocarditis are identified

Provider bulletin: 14 September 2016
This fortnightly newsletter is sent to NHS trust and foundation trust chairs, chief executives, finance, medical and nursing directors, and foundation trust board secretaries.