Ed Hammond: Health white paper seeks to unravel local democratic accountability
Local councillors should continue to play a vigorous part in the architecture of the health service, writes the director of research and campaigns at the Centre for Governance & Scrutiny.
The health white paper was front-page news a couple of weeks ago – in part due to its having been leaked prior to formal publication – but with the projected relaxation of Covid restrictions the news agenda has decidedly moved on. But the document will lead to some profound shifts in local health services – as well as providing the framework into which the long-long-delayed social care reforms will (eventually) sit.
Richard Humphries: The hunt for good leadership in social care
Co-produced local leadership is the best way forward, writes the senior fellow at the King’s Fund in a blog that was originally published on the King’s Fund website, here.
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Don Berwick reminded us of the intense demands the crisis was making of leaders, greater than even those of us in the autumn of our careers can ever remember. This applies no less to those leading social care services – in care homes, home care services and other less visible settings. So this has been a timely juncture to capture, in our new report, the findings of interviews with 40 people in seven very different parts of England about the nature of leadership in the sector. Where does it lie? How effective is it? What might be done to improve it?
The mixed messages inside the Woking Covid testing zone after Matt Hancock went on TV and caused huge confusion
The Health Secretary appeared to contradict messages sent out locally in Woking
Updated
Police volunteer John Adams drops off test kits to Linda and Clive Dymond of Goldsworth Park (Image: Grahame Larter)
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Local leaders from across the North are furious that the vaccine supplies in their area will be cut by a third in February.
To ensure all of those people in the top priority groups can be vaccinated quickly, targeted deliveries are being made to areas where there are more people left to vaccinate in the priority cohorts proportionate to the at risk population they have registered.
Health Service Journal revealed earlier this week that by the second week of February the weekly supply will be reduced to 200,000 for Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and South Cumbria. Around 310,000 jabs were administered in the North West in the week to 24 January.