Health and care sector latest developments

NHS delayed discharges cost £2.7 billion

King's Fund analysis estimates delayed hospital discharges now cost the NHS £2.7 billion a year, with around 13,000 patients medically fit for discharge remaining in hospital each day.

As PA Media reports, they stress that pressures in adult social care and community services are driving delays.

Senior analyst at the King’s Fund, Danielle Jefferies, claims that expanding community care and preventing ill health will be key to reducing hospital demand.

NICE backs new endometriosis tests

NICE has recommended two new non invasive endometriosis tests - EndoSure and Endotest for NHS use.

According to PA Media, the tests will be introduced for an initial three-year evidence gathering period to support earlier diagnosis and treatment. 

Healthtech Programme director at NICE, Dr Anastasia Chalkidou said the technologies have the potential to "change" diagnosis by giving primary care professionals "better non invasive tools to identify endometriosis earlier", enabling women to access treatment sooner.

Goverment publishes cardiovascular disease (CVD) modern service framework (MSF)

The MSF takes a cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic approach, emphasising the need to drive progress in CVD after improvements have stalled or reversed in recent years.

The framework aims to reduce premature heart disease and stroke deaths by 25 per cent over the next decade, and a new partnership has been announced with Diabetes UK.

This partnership seeks to raise awareness of the links between type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Twelve immediate priorities are established over the next three years, setting out how local health and care systems should deliver reduced mortality and inequalities.

The health secretary said the government is "setting clear priorities to help people stay healthier for longer, identify and diagnose serious disease much earlier, and deliver better treatment when it is needed."

Online hospital risks ‘leaving behind’ mental health, top chief executive warns

Mental health is at risk of being “left behind” by the first online NHS hospital, a top mental health chief executive has said.

Ify Okocha, chief executive of Oxleas Foundation Trust and this year named by HSJ as one of the country’s top NHS leaders, told his board last week that he had personally challenged NHS Online’s new chair over the exclusion of mental health from the service’s initial plans.

He said: “I feel strongly about it. This is often what happens – mental health is left behind, and then we’re told ‘we don’t quite know how to help you’. I’m keen for us to be a part of that.”

Burnham urged to ditch ‘dangerous’ UK-US NHS drug deal

The Guardian reports that Andy Burnham is being urged to scrap the UK-US trade deal on medicines as health organisations and doctors’ groups warn it is dangerous and prioritises pharmaceutical company profits over the lives of NHS patients.

Ministers have defended the agreement, signed last December, as a way of helping British drug exports to the US avoid tariffs and giving patients access to potentially life-extending drugs that would otherwise be denied.

But they have been accused of caving in to US demands to spend billions of pounds a year extra on drugs supplied to the NHS after pressure from Donald Trump. Last week, the Guardian reported that the NHS would have to divert £45 billion from essential services to pay for new medicines as a result of the deal, leading to more than 200,000 avoidable patient deaths.

Now Burnham – who is expected to succeed Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister within weeks – is facing calls to ditch the agreement and focus instead on securing the long-term future of the NHS.

Around a million parents urged to book new ‘four-in-one’ NHS jab to protect young children against measles

NHS England is urging around a million families to protect their children against the spread of measles and other potentially deadly childhood illnesses, as part of a new NHS vaccination drive.

Children aged from 12-months to 11 years old who have missed one or both doses of the vaccine, will be invited as part of the NHS England’s campaign which runs until March next year.

In addition to measles, mumps and rubella (MMR/V), the vaccine will also include protection against chickenpox (Varicella).

Farage resigns, triggering Clacton by-election

Nigel Farage has resigned as the MP for Clacton with the intention of contesting the resulting by-election as he attempts to regain control of the narrative after questions about his finances. 

In a TV address this afternoon, he framed the contest as a “people vs the establishment by-election” where he intends to “fight to win”. The move echoes David Davis' 2008 resignation over civil liberties, where he won back his seat in an election uncontested by Labour or the Liberal Democrats. 

While PA Media has reported that Rupert Lowe’s Restore party will not field a candidate, Farage is unlikely to be unopposed. With opponents labelling the move a stunt intended to distract from increasing noise around donations, Farage has already tried to outflank some criticism, offering on X to cover the cost of the by-election.