The Department of Health’s Business Plan for 2012-15 sets out the programme of work that is planned to be carried out over the next three years to support the Coalition Government’s objectives. It also contains information on our structure and budget, and the way we measure our performance.
Thursday 31 May 2012
DoH Bulletin 250
On the agenda this week: nominations for the NHS Leadership
Recognition Awards are extended to 29 June 2012 and Paul Burstow announces £60
million of funding for hospices.
Monday 28 May 2012
Guidance Aims To Improve Procurement Across Healthcare System
Guidance aimed at improving procurement across the
healthcare system has been published by the Department of Health.
‘NHS Procurement: Raising Our Game’ sets out proposed
actions for NHS trusts and the Department and focuses on taking immediate
action to start tackling six key areas for improvements:
- levers for change
- transparency and data management
- NHS standards of procurement
- leadership, clinical engagement and reducing variation
- collaboration and use of procurement partners
- suppliers, innovation and growth
This guidance is launched in advance of a procurement
strategy planned for later in 2012 that will be developed following a wider
call for evidence. It aims to start the journey to world class procurement by
identifying those issues and actions that require immediate attention in order
to lay the foundations for a fuller and further-reaching strategy later in the
year.
In support, we are also publishing NHS Standards of
Procurement, which will support trusts in understanding what good procurement
looks like and in planning their improvements at a local level. The standards can be used to identify what a
trust’s areas of strengths and weakness are in their procurement and suggest
ways in which they can start to monitor and measure improvements.
Thursday 24 May 2012
Further Evidence On Market-Facing Pay Published
More written evidence on market-facing pay has been
published by the Department of Health.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to the Senior Salaries
Review Body (SSRB) on 7 December 2011 asking it to consider how to make pay
more market-facing for NHS very senior managers (VSMs).
On 23 December 2011 the Secretary of State for Health wrote
to the SSRB confirming the remit and setting out the work required. The SSRB
issued a call for evidence to enable them to carry out this work. The evidence argues that there is a national
market for this small group of key leaders of national organisations. The
introduction of market facing pay for VSMs would risk limiting the pool of
available talent and jeopardising recruitment to these key roles.
The new pay framework for VSMs about to be published is
based on national pay rates with flexibility to respond to local conditions and
the Department believes that this is the right approach for VSM pay.
DoH Bulletin 249
On the agenda this week: patients to be offered more choice
about where, when and how they receive common medical tests, Start4Life
partners new Hollywood film, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, in support
of healthier pregnancies, and healthcare professionals are asked to review
their actions concerning female genital mutilation in an open letter from the
Chief Medical Officer, the Director of Nursing and the Royal Colleges.
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Health & Safety Executive - CDM Regulations To Be Rewritten For 2014
The HSE has announced it will be re-drafting the
Construction (Design & Management) Regulations for reissue in 2014. A representative from the regulator confirmed
the plans at an event held by the Association for Project Safety in May.
Details will be presented to the HSE board in December 2012.
However, the Executive indicated that the new Regulations are likely to be
based more closely on the requirements of the EU Temporary or Mobile
Construction Sites Directive.
Monday 21 May 2012
Signs Of Shift In Prosecution Policy From Employees To Those At The Top
There has been a sharp drop in the number of prosecutions of
employees under section 7 of the HSWA in the last five or six years, according
to figures collated by the HSE from its prosecutions database.
Friday 18 May 2012
Monitor FT Bulletin May 2012
In this edition:
- NHS provider licence: summary of your feedback
- Annual Plan Review 2012/13
- Clarifications on indicators in the Compliance Framework 2012/13
- Criteria for assessing the affordability of Tier 2 long-term borrowing limit applications
- Foundation trust 2011/12 annual reports and accounts
Sustainable Development in Government The Big Green Bundle: Engaging Staff On Green Issues
The Big Green Bundle aims to help inspire participation
among employees in initiatives to green organisations.
What makes The Big Green Bundle different is that it uses
Defra’s environmental segmentation model to divide employees into seven
different groups depending on their attitudes and beliefs towards the
environment, environmental issues and behaviours.
Thursday 17 May 2012
DoH Bulletin 248
On the agenda this week: the Secretary of State pledges more
support for women with post-natal depression, the Department teams up with
doc2doc forum to gather views on long-term conditions, and the NHS Patient
Feedback Challenge uses new ways of working to share and implement the
measurement and improvement of patient experience across the NHS.
Monday 14 May 2012
DoH Corporate Plan 2012-13
The Department of Health’s Corporate Plan sets out our
priorities for the year ahead. The Department’s enduring purpose is to achieve
better health, better care, better value: working to help people live better
for longer.
Now that the Health and Social Care Bill has become law, the
Department has a firm platform on which to build clarity about the future
direction of the health and social care system as a whole.
The plan groups the Department’s activity into six priority
areas:
- Better health; Better care; Better value relate directly to DH’s enduring purpose and capture the key business priorities for the Department for this year to April 2013
- Successful change, delivering the transition to the new system – picks up the work the DH does and its accountability for making this happen
- Working with our partners – builds on what the DH does now and recognises that in the new system the Department will be working differently
- Transforming the DH itself – is about the DH’s journey to develop its capability.
The plan is also built around how the Department will
support the Secretary of State to deliver his five strategic objectives:
- a patient-led NHS
- delivering better health outcomes
- a more autonomous and accountable NHS
- improved public health
- reforming long-term and social care.
Thursday 10 May 2012
DoH Bulletin 247
On the agenda this week: The Draft Bill to modernise adult
care and support in England has been announced in the Queen’s Speech, and the Department
for Health has decided not to release the risk register from November 2010.
Tuesday 8 May 2012
Details Of Potentially Surplus Land For Housing In The NHS Published
Details of potentially surplus land for housing, currently owned by NHS organisations, which is no longer required nor likely to be needed for health service purposes in the future have been published. The information was provided by each of the 399 NHS trusts in England to the Department of Health through a central data collection.
The main findings from the 2012 data collection from NHS trusts, which related to parcels over 0.25 hectares, include:
- of the total 399 NHS trusts, 188 (47 per cent) declared at least one parcel of surplus or potentially surplus land and 211 (53 per cent) gave a nil response
- a total of 414 separate parcels of land were identified by the 188 NHS trusts who declared surplus or potentially surplus land.
See the main findings and the details of the surplus land data collection.
The results provide an update to the information published in October 2011 by the NHS and the Department of Health on the Disposal strategy – Land For housing. The information will assist in quantifying the contribution of the NHS to the on-going government initiative of accelerating the release of public sector land for development. The data collection used to compile these statistics was undertaken during January and February 2012 and the statistics relate to information available as at 1 January 2012.
Wednesday 2 May 2012
Safe Management Of Healthcare Waste
An updated version of the safe management of healthcare
waste guidance manual is published. A
number of issues needed clarifying to improve consistency of understanding and
to advise of legislative changes that have come into force since publication.
The changes are:
- a change of wording from premises notification to premises registration
- a paragraph has been inserted on the Waste Framework Directive 2011 which came into force after publication
- Controlled Waste Regulations 2012 came into force 6 April 2012 – this needed a revised note added links needed amending from the Carriage of Dangerous Goods Pressure Equipment Regulations 2004 version to 2009 regulations
- inconsistency of terminology i.e. sharps boxes, sharps containers, sharps receptacles etc. have changed to sharps receptacles for consistency
- other amends were of in a similar vein.
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