Since 2008, the NMC has experienced a 300 per cent increase in fitness to practise referrals. There is no sign of this slowing down any time soon. This is against a backdrop of increasing pressure to progress fitness to practise cases through the process faster than ever before. We have made £25 million worth of efficiency savings over the past three years. We are on track to make a further £4.6 million during 20142015. However, this does not bridge the funding gap that will be left once the government grant ends. The grant allowed us to keep the fee at £100 for two years; we still need a fee of £120 per registrant if we are to continue with the current level of fitness to practise activity and to make the improvements we have committed to.
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURER HAS NOT STOPPED MISLEADING MARKETING It is a matter of some concern that Best Medical Cover continues to send out spam emails saying: ‘Skip NHS waiting lists… you could wait 18+ weeks for your operation. Rather than waiting in pain and discomfort, thousands of people every year are forced to pay for surgery privately. But did you know that going private means paying up to £8,000 for your operation.’ Best Medical Cover’s answer is for us to pay for private medical cover ‘all from just 70p a day’. The ASA has urged the company to desist from ‘appealing to fear to sell private health insurance’. Why is it continuing? Paula Duckworth, by email
GIVE SOME OF THE HEALTH SERVICE’S £1.5 BILLION UNDERSPEND TO NMC The Nursing and Midwifery Council wants to increase the annual registration fee for nurses to help pay for fitness to practise hearings and to build up reserves of £10 million (Letters April 2). Instead of charging nurses, it should go cap in hand to the government and ask for a slice of the health service’s £1.5 billion underspend against the Department of Health’s departmental expenditure limit for 2012/13. According to Department of Health accounts, this underspend was returned to the Treasury to ‘help in wider fiscal deficit reduction’. NHS England has admitted that £650 million of provisions made by primary health trusts last year to pay for historic continuing healthcare claims will not be available to clinical commissioning groups. This sum has effectively been removed from health spending. It would be good to see some of it returned to health care by way of propping up NMC finances.
CAMPAIGNERS SHOULD BE THANKED FOR DELAY TO CARE.DATA SCHEME I followed your correspondence about plans to share our medical records through the care.data database to private companies (Letters January 22, February 5, 12, 19 and 26, and March 5). The government’s thinking was that people who wanted to opt out could simply contact their GP and it would be recorded on their notes. There was also an assumption that the vast majority would be happy to have their records stored in a comprehensive health database, available to all those who wanted to use it, and that this information would improve patient care and healthcare services. The subsequent outcry over the use and sale of such information was sufficient for NHS England to put back the implementation of the scheme at least until June. I hope that the people at NHS England responsible for this scheme have gone back to the drawing board and are rethinking their proposals. We should be grateful to the band of privacy campaigners who campaigned on this issue and urged us to sign their petitions and write to our MPs.
Glyn Major, by email
David Clarke, by email
Jackie Smith, chief executive and registrar, NMC, by email
TWEETS OF THE WEEK Unsafe staffing levels are consistently reported and no action taken – not enough staff throughout. Major priority to sort out @RachWat
Almost every complaint and incident, when looked at, comes down to low staffing levels yet this is never addressed! @smbslt
And inadequate bed space as well as poor staffing levels @jorococoko
There should be guidance on what exactly should be on whiteboards so rels and pts can understand them #NScomment @yinyins88
Working nights is great until you’re awake in the middle of the night at home with nothing to do @Nursing_Prblems
Charge people £10 every time they try to sell off a bit of the NHS. Problem sorted @davidschneider
Man received letter asking him to attend hospital appointment on Tues 6 Feb. Dialled 999 to tell us Tues wasn’t the 6th @policescotland
As much as I love doing my nursing degree, 5 hours talking about cancer is a bit depresso @OliviaSeddon95
Follow Nursing Standard @NScomment and join the #NScomment chat on Thursdays at 12.30pm
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PRIVATE HEALTH INSURER HAS NOT STOPPED MISLEADING MARKETING It is a matter of some concern that Best Medical Cover continues to send out spam emails saying: ‘Skip NHS waiting lists… you could wait 18+ weeks for your operation. Rather than waiting in pain and discomfort, thousands of people every year are forced to pay for surgery privately. But did you know that going private means paying up to £8,000 for your operation.’ Best Medical Cover’s answer is for us to pay for private medical cover ‘all from just 70p a day’. The ASA has urged the company to desist from ‘appealing to fear to sell private health insurance’. Why is it continuing? Paula Duckworth, by email
GIVE SOME OF THE HEALTH SERVICE’S £1.5 BILLION UNDERSPEND TO NMC The Nursing and Midwifery Council wants to increase the annual registration fee for nurses to help pay for fitness to practise hearings and to build up reserves of £10 million (Letters April 2). Instead of charging nurses, it should go cap in hand to the government and ask for a slice of the health service’s £1.5 billion underspend against the Department of Health’s departmental expenditure limit for 2012/13. According to Department of Health accounts, this underspend was returned to the Treasury to ‘help in wider fiscal deficit reduction’. NHS England has admitted that £650 million of provisions made by primary health trusts last year to pay for historic continuing healthcare claims will not be available to clinical commissioning groups. This sum has effectively been removed from health spending. It would be good to see some of it returned to health care by way of propping up NMC finances.
CAMPAIGNERS SHOULD BE THANKED FOR DELAY TO CARE.DATA SCHEME I followed your correspondence about plans to share our medical records through the care.data database to private companies (Letters January 22, February 5, 12, 19 and 26, and March 5). The government’s thinking was that people who wanted to opt out could simply contact their GP and it would be recorded on their notes. There was also an assumption that the vast majority would be happy to have their records stored in a comprehensive health database, available to all those who wanted to use it, and that this information would improve patient care and healthcare services. The subsequent outcry over the use and sale of such information was sufficient for NHS England to put back the implementation of the scheme at least until June. I hope that the people at NHS England responsible for this scheme have gone back to the drawing board and are rethinking their proposals. We should be grateful to the band of privacy campaigners who campaigned on this issue and urged us to sign their petitions and write to our MPs.
Glyn Major, by email
David Clarke, by email
Jackie Smith, chief executive and registrar, NMC, by email
TWEETS OF THE WEEK Unsafe staffing levels are consistently reported and no action taken – not enough staff throughout. Major priority to sort out @RachWat
Almost every complaint and incident, when looked at, comes down to low staffing levels yet this is never addressed! @smbslt
And inadequate bed space as well as poor staffing levels @jorococoko
There should be guidance on what exactly should be on whiteboards so rels and pts can understand them #NScomment @yinyins88
Working nights is great until you’re awake in the middle of the night at home with nothing to do @Nursing_Prblems
Charge people £10 every time they try to sell off a bit of the NHS. Problem sorted @davidschneider
Man received letter asking him to attend hospital appointment on Tues 6 Feb. Dialled 999 to tell us Tues wasn’t the 6th @policescotland
As much as I love doing my nursing degree, 5 hours talking about cancer is a bit depresso @OliviaSeddon95
Follow Nursing Standard @NScomment and join the #NScomment chat on Thursdays at 12.30pm
NURSING STANDARD aprilNo9 other :: vol uses 28 no 32 :: permission. 2014 33 Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 26, 2015. For personal use only. without Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
