Government will cap legal costs of clinical negligence claims – BMJ
A group of government, NHS, and legal experts will work to introduce a cap on the amount that lawyers can recover in clinical negligence cases, the Department of Health and Social Care has announced. The proposed cap would apply to all cases up to £25 000 and could save the NHS £45m a year, it said. There is currently no limit on legal costs that can be recouped from clinical negligence claims.

NIHR Signals

The National Institute for Health Research has published the following Signals containing summaries of published research for health and social care decision makers:

• Delayed umbilical cord clamping reduces hospital mortality for preterm infants
• Direct acting oral anticoagulants likely to be better than warfarin for people taking them for atrial fibrillation
• Self-testing kits increase overall HIV testing uptake in men who have sex with men
• Quality improvement collaboratives can improve clinical processes and patient outcomes
• Intravenous antibiotics, administered over 3 hours, are linked to lower death rates in sepsis
• Social exclusion heightens risk of death across many health conditions
• Study raises questions about NHS “weekend effect”
• Parental training improves a child’s disruptive behaviours regardless of socio-economic disadvantage or ethnicity
• Early use of tranexamic acid reduces bleeding more effectively
• Stopping biological drugs for rheumatoid arthritis can lead to twice the relapse rate

Falls prevention: cost-effective commissioning

Public Health England has published Falls prevention: cost- effective commissioning.  The return on investment tool pulls together evidence on the effectiveness and associated costs for interventions aimed at preventing falls in older people living in the community.  There is an accompanying report detailing how the tool was constructed and presents the main results and a second report summarising the findings from a literature review carried out to identify cost-effective interventions.

HSJ Roundup (contact the Library for further details)

• Royal college raises alarm over critical care beds shortage 
  The Royal College of Surgeons has warned there may be too few critical care beds in England to cope with demand.
• Trust saves £2m after taking on commissioning powers 
  A Yorkshire trust has managed to save £2m by repatriating out of area, locked rehabilitation patients and caring for them in the community.
• Concerns raised over growing DHSC underspends 
  The Department of Health and Social Care has repeatedly reported underspends against an accounting mechanism intended to cover the costs of assets over their lifetime.
• Four trusts looking into pharmacy joint venture 
  Trusts in Berkshire and Surrey are looking at creating a pharmacy joint venture modelled on their existing pathology service.
• Director resigns over ‘complete governance breakdown’ 
  A non-executive director at troubled Wirral University Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust has resigned with immediate effect amid a deepening crisis at the trust, including a “complete breakdown of relationships” at board level.
• NHS manager numbers return to pre-Lansley reform levels 
  The number of senior managers working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups has increased by more than a quarter since 2013 – and is now higher than before the reforms introduced by Andrew Lansley.
• Registered nurse recruitment outstripped by support staff growth 
  The number of registered nurses working in the NHS hospital sector has passed 180,000 for the first time.
• King’s needs £223m DHSC loan this year, board reveals 
  A London teaching hospital has predicted it will need to borrow nearly a quarter of a billion pounds from the Department of Health and Social Care this financial year, it emerged yesterday.
• Major private GP provider loses top executives 
  The chief executive and finance director of one of England’s largest GP providers have both resigned in the last two months, HSJ can reveal.
• Trust reports £30m deterioration after leaving special measures 
  An NHS trust which was lifted out of financial special measures last year has reported a £30m deterioration against its financial plan.