HC 971 - An Update on Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust

HC 971 - An Update on Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 021508425X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
The taxpayer has been left exposed by the failure of the Hinchingbrooke franchise according to the Public Accounts Committee's report. In February 2012, Circle took operational control of Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust, becoming the first private company to run an NHS hospital. In January 2013, the Committee expressed concerns that Circle's bid to run Hinchingbrooke had not been properly risk assessed and was based on overly optimistic and unachievable savings projections. The Department of Health responded that the NHS Trust Development Authority would monitor progress and take action if the Trust was failing to deliver on its plans to make the hospital financially sustainable. In the event, Circle was not able to make the Trust sustainable and the NHS Trust Development Authority did not take effective action to protect the taxpayer. In January 2015, Circle announced that it intended to withdraw from the contract, just three years into the 10-year franchise. It was clear at the time the franchise was let that the Trust would only survive if it secured substantial savings. The Comptroller and Auditor General's 2012 report highlighted that the savings projected in Circle's bid were unprecedented as a percentage of annual turnover in the NHS.

HC 971 - An Update on Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust

HC 971 - An Update on Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 021508425X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
The taxpayer has been left exposed by the failure of the Hinchingbrooke franchise according to the Public Accounts Committee's report. In February 2012, Circle took operational control of Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust, becoming the first private company to run an NHS hospital. In January 2013, the Committee expressed concerns that Circle's bid to run Hinchingbrooke had not been properly risk assessed and was based on overly optimistic and unachievable savings projections. The Department of Health responded that the NHS Trust Development Authority would monitor progress and take action if the Trust was failing to deliver on its plans to make the hospital financially sustainable. In the event, Circle was not able to make the Trust sustainable and the NHS Trust Development Authority did not take effective action to protect the taxpayer. In January 2015, Circle announced that it intended to withdraw from the contract, just three years into the 10-year franchise. It was clear at the time the franchise was let that the Trust would only survive if it secured substantial savings. The Comptroller and Auditor General's 2012 report highlighted that the savings projected in Circle's bid were unprecedented as a percentage of annual turnover in the NHS.

HC 973 - Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour

HC 973 - Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215085647
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
The Winterbourne View scandal in 2011 exposed the horrific abuse of people with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour in a private mental health hospital. Concerns were also raised about a number of other institutions. As a result, the Government committed to discharging those individuals for whom it was appropriate back into their homes and communities. However, since then, too many children and adults have continued to go into mental health hospitals, and to stay there unnecessarily, because of the lack of community alternatives. The number of people with learning disabilities remaining in hospital has not fallen, and has remained broadly the same at around 3,200. It was refreshing that NHS England took responsibility for this lack of progress and has now committed to develop a closure programme for large NHS mental health hospitals, along with a transition plan for the people with learning disabilities within these hospitals, from 2016-17. Discharges from hospital are being delayed because funding does not follow the individual when they are discharged into the community. This acts as a financial disincentive for local commissioners who have to bear the costs and responsibility for planning and commissioning community services. Delaying discharge has the effect of institutionalising people, making their reintegration into the community more difficult. Some local authorities' reluctance to accept and fund individuals in the community will be exacerbated by current financial constraints. The Department should set out its proposals for 'dowry-type' payments from NHS England to meet the costs of supporting people discharged from hospital.

HC 892 - The Effective Management of Tax Reliefs

HC 892 - The Effective Management of Tax Reliefs PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215085582
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 21

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Book Description
Tax and tax reliefs are plainly different and require different accountability arrangements. Put simply tax is where you get money in through taxation and a tax relief is where you make a conscious decision to forgo that income. Some reliefs are structural parts of the system to ensure a more progressive system or avoid double taxation. But other reliefs, costing some £100 billion a year, are designed to deliver a policy objective that could be met instead through spending programmes. HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not keep track of those tax reliefs intended to influence behaviour. They do not adequately report to Parliament or the public on whether reliefs are working as intended and what they cost and whether they represent good value for money. While HMRC is accountable for implementing and monitoring all tax reliefs, its statements about the extent of its responsibilities are inconsistent with its actual practices. HMRC accepts it has a role to assess, evaluate and monitor reliefs, but is unable or unwilling to define or to categorise reliefs by their purpose. While HMRC accepts the need for reporting the costs of tax reliefs, it does not see the merit in assessing the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of reliefs, or considering their cost effectiveness alongside that of alternative policy instruments such as spending programmes. HMRC does not generally assess the effectiveness of reliefs with specific objectives although in a few instances it does consider their impact on taxpayer behaviour. HMRC's failure to articulate a set of principles to guide its management and reporting of tax reliefs is a serious omission which it now needs to rectify.

HC 737 - Strategic Flood Risk Management

HC 737 - Strategic Flood Risk Management PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215084489
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 21

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Book Description
Given financial constraints, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency have done a good job in improving the cost effectiveness of their approach to flood risk management. They have adopted rational methods to prioritise spending on both new capital flood defences and maintaining existing ones. However, risks remain to the sustainability of current levels of flood protection. The Agency will need to make difficult decisions about how it prioritises its maintenance budget, including some defences where it will need to reduce or stop maintenance. In these cases, there is a risk that lack of maintenance will mean that capital costs are incurred sooner, when defences require replacement earlier. Since our evidence session, the Agency has published a long term investment strategy, which presents a number of flooding scenarios and outlines how much funding would be needed to protect against these.

HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15

HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215085779
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
This report summarises the key areas of the Committee's work over the past five years. It draws out the areas where progress has been made and where their successors might wish to press in future. The Committee has assiduously followed the taxpayer's pound wherever it was spent. Since 2010 they held 276 evidence sessions and published 244 unanimous reports to hold government to account for its performance. 88% of their recommendations were accepted by departments. In many cases they successfully secured substantial changes, for example with the once secret tax avoidance industry. They secured consensus from government and from industry that private providers of public services do have a duty of care to the taxpayer, and in pushing the protection of whistleblowers further up the agenda of all government departments. By drawing attention to mistakes in the Department for Transport's procurement of the West Coast Mainline, more recent procurements for Crossrail, Thameslink and Intercity Express have all benefited from more expert advice and a more appropriate level of challenge from senior staff. After discovery in 2012-13 that 63% of calls to government call centres were to higher rate telephone numbers, the Government accepted our recommendation that telephone lines serving vulnerable and low income groups never be charged above the geographic rate and that 03 numbers should be available for all government telephone lines. They also secured a commitment to close large mental health hospitals.

HC 1045 - Major Projects Report 2014 and the Equipment Plan 2014 to 2024, and Reforming Defence Acquisition

HC 1045 - Major Projects Report 2014 and the Equipment Plan 2014 to 2024, and Reforming Defence Acquisition PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215084314
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 21

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Book Description
The Committee welcomes the progress made by the Ministry of Defence in getting to grips with its budget and military equipment costs. The affordability of the Department's 10-year plan for buying and supporting equipment is, however, dependent on it: continuing to control cost increases in existing equipment projects; delivering ambitious project cost savings over the next 10 years in order to balance its budget; and having the right skills in place to ensure that the assumptions made in its plans are robust and deliverable. Failure to improve the skills of Defence Equipment and Support (DEandS), which buys and maintains military equipment, will undermine the Department's efforts to improve control over its finances. The Department agrees that DEandS is over-reliant on expensive contractors and DEandS is spending a further £250 million on contractors over the next three and a half years to determine how it will address this and secure the skills needed to deliver the Equipment Plan within the assumed budget and to time. There remain risks to the success of the Department's Army 2020 programme designed to reduce the size of the regular Army and increase the number of trained Army reserves. The Department has not yet addressed the Committee's previous recommendations to develop credible contingency plans in the event that it cannot recruit the number of regular and reserve soldiers it requires. While the Department is reporting progress against its recruitment targets, it does acknowledge that targets beyond 2016 will be challenging and require significant improvements in performance.

Delivering Social Welfare

Delivering Social Welfare PDF Author: Derek Birrell
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447319176
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
As the system of social welfare governance and delivery in the United Kingdom faces continued, radical change, this important book argues that this change is so extensive that we should consider it a fundamental transformation or revolution. Assessing twenty years of changes across the whole of the United Kingdom, Derek Birrell and Ann Marie Gray show how a new public governance perspective has replaced the dominance of public management, reflecting the increasingly plural and fragmented nature of public policy implementation. Drawing on examples across a range of policy areas, this comprehensive book unravels the complex ways in which changes in social policy and governance interact in the delivery of social welfare, making it essential reading for welfare researchers, students, and policy makers.

Childhood Glaucoma

Childhood Glaucoma PDF Author: R.N. Weinreb
Publisher: Kugler Publications
ISBN: 9062992390
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Preface Childhood is the topic of the ninth World Glaucoma Association Consensus. There has been only sparse attention to the diagnosis and treatment of childhood glaucoma. Both pediatric ophthalmologists and glaucoma specialists provide care for such children. In some instances, they manage these individuals alone and, in others, the management is shared. For this consensus, the participation of both groups was solicited. The global faculty, consisting of leading authorities on the clinical and scientific aspects of childhood glaucoma, met in Vancouver on July 16, 2013, just prior to the World Glaucoma Congress, to discuss the reports and refine the consensus statements. As with prior meetings, it was a daunting task to seek and obtain consensus on such a complicated and nuanced subject. It is unclear how each of us decides how we practice, and evidence to guide us often is sparse. It is remarkable how few high level studies have been conducted on the management of childhood glaucoma. Hence, this consensus, as with the others, is based not only on the published literature, but also on expert opinion. Although consensus does not replace and is not a surrogate for scientific investigation, it does provide considerable value, especially when the desired evidence is lacking. The goal of this consensus was to provide a foundation for diagnosing and treating childhood glaucoma and how it can be best done in clinical practice. Identification of those areas for which we have little evidence and, therefore, the need for additional research also was a high priority. We hope that this consensus report will serve as a benchmark of our understanding. However, this consensus report, as with each of the others, is intended to be just a beginning. It is expected that it will be revised and improved with the emergence of new evidence. Robert N. Weinreb, Chair

Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Bone Marrow

Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Bone Marrow PDF Author: Andrea Baur-Melnyk
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 364217860X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
On account of its unrivalled imaging capabilities and sensitivity, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is considered the modality of choice for the investigation of physiologic and pathologic processes affecting the bone marrow. This book describes the MRI appearances of both the normal bone marrow, including variants, and the full range of bone marrow disorders. Detailed discussion is devoted to malignancies, including multiple myeloma, lymphoma, chronic myeloproliferative disorders, leukemia, and bone metastases. Among the other conditions covered are benign and malignant compression fractures, osteonecrosis, hemolytic anemia, Gaucher’s disease, bone marrow edema syndrome, trauma, and infective and non-infective inflammatory disease. Further chapters address the role of MRI in assessing treatment response, the use of contrast media, and advanced MRI techniques. Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Bone Marrow represents an ideal reference for both novice and experienced practitioners.

WHO Recommendation on Umbilical Vein Injection of Oxytocin for the Treatment of Retained Placenta

WHO Recommendation on Umbilical Vein Injection of Oxytocin for the Treatment of Retained Placenta PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789240013957
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
Efforts to prevent and reduce morbidity and mortality due to PPH (Postpartum haemorrhage) can help to address the profound inequities in maternal and perinatal health globally. To achieve this, skilled health personnel, health managers, policy-makers and other stakeholders need up-to-date and evidence-informed recommendations to guide clinical policies and practices. In 2019, the Executive Guideline Steering Group (GSG) for the World Health Organization (WHO) maternal and perinatal health recommendations prioritized updating of the existing WHO recommendation: Umbilical vein injection of oxytocin for the treatment of retained placenta, in response to the availability of new evidence. The recommendation in this document thus supersedes the previous WHO recommendations on "intraumbilical vein injection of oxytocin for treatment of retained placenta" as published in the 2012 guideline, WHO recommendations for the prevention and treatment of postpartum haemorrhage.