Greater Manchester to control its own health and social care budget

After the bed blocking that occurred this Winter, with patients unable to be discharged due to lack of appropriate facilities, it is clear that the NHS and council-run social care needs to be more integrated. In an attempt to tackle this, Greater Manchester has become the first English region to get full control of its health spending. Set to come into force in April 2016, the region's councils and health groups will be responsible for the £6bn health and social care budget.

Image: Full Fact

With the ageing population and the need to care for those with long-term conditions, there is an increasing demand for care homes and care in the community. Linking the NHS and social care could improve facilities, direct money to where it needs to be spent and improve communication between primary and secondary care. However, should this be done regionally?

Image: Imperial College Health Partners 

If this spreads so that all regions in England control their own health and social care budget, this will surely go against what it meant to be a National health service. Therefore, leading to further break up of the NHS. Not only this, but it is handing over a huge amount of money and responsibility.

Is the NHS ready for yet another reform?!

Highest suicide rates in men since 2001

It has been reported today that the number of men committing suicide is at an all time high since 2001. In 2013, 78% of suicides were in men, compared to 63% in 1981. Additionally, the age category showing the highest suicide rate for men (and women) was 45-59 year olds, where it was previously 30-44 year olds. 

Suicide is the leading cause of death in men aged 20-34, and represented 24% of deaths in 2013! Joe Ferns from the Samaritans said "The news is sadly not surprising to us given the context of a challenging economic environment and the social impact that brings". However, this does not mean these deaths are not preventable, and something needs to be done. 

Image: Daniel Fryer

As I have said in a previous post about mental health (Let's talk about it), we need to make it ok for people suffering from mental illness to seek help and encourage them to do so. But we also need to provide much better support from GPs, hospitals and other care settings, as well as getting families and friends involved. 

So what is being done to try to cut the number of suicides? It was reported earlier this year that the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg wants to adopt a similar strategy pioneered in Detroit that is being implemented in Merseycare NHS trust in Liverpool. 
This strategy includes:

• creating a Safe from Suicide Team, a 24/7 group of experts which rapidly and thoroughly assesses patients who are having suicidal thoughts
• improving the care of people who present with self-harm injuries at accident and emergency units, offering them therapies on the spot and following up with them when they go home
• improving data collection on patients to get a better understanding of how and where patients are most at risk of suicide and then targeting resources at them

Image: Mental Healthy

However, this strategy cannot work unless the government takes mental health seriously and allows the necessary funding for such a prominent problem. 

Protecting whistleblowers

Today, Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, has issued a message to staff in the NHS concerning whistleblowing. This is following the report published by Sir Robert Francis on the Freedom to Speak to Speak Up review. Sir Robert Francis, who published a report into the Mid Staffordshire inquiry, identified it to be an ongoing problem in the NHS, with staff being deterred from speaking up due to consequences that happen when they do.

Image: Skills on Toast

Six hundred people shared their experiences with the review and over 19,000 staff members responded to an independent online survey. They shared stories of victimisation when raising concerns, facing isolation and bullying. Others did not speak up as they feared not being listened to.

Sir Robert Francis has come up with proposals to support whistleblowers in the NHS, which includes:

• action at every level of the NHS to make raising concerns part of every member of staff’s normal working life
• a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian in every NHS trust – a named person in every hospital to give independent support and advice to staff who want to speak up and hold the board to account it fails to focus on the patient safety issue.
• a National Independent Officer who can support local Guardians, to intervene when cases are going wrong and identify any failing to address dangers to patient safety, the integrity of he NHS or injustice to staff
• a new support scheme to help good NHS staff who have found themselves out of a job as a result of raising concerns get back into work.

Image: Freedom to Speak up

These proposals aim to encourage staff to speak up and feel safe about doing so, and for all concerns to be heard and investigated properly. For more information on the review and what it means for staff in the NHS and patients, go to the Freedom to Speak Up website.