Dr Foster, at this year's annual NHS Confederation conference, has put together an in-depth financial view of the NHS, the challenges it faces where savings can be made and ideas for the future.
Our headline story looks at the rate of readmissions and how much funding hospital trusts currently get for readmissions. This is likely to be affected by the new policy announced recently by Health Secretary Andrew Lansely MP. The full research behind the story can be found here. The second story involves the longer term cost savings associated with Primary Angioplasty for eligible heart attack patients, alongside the benefits of higher survival rates than using traditional clot-busting drugs. The full research can be found here.
The inside pages focus on four experts reviewing the changing relationship between the NHS and the patient, suggesting some innovative and exciting changes that will also help save money. Alongside the comment are case studies of actual savings being made in the NHS. Page 3 reviews the international work of Dr Foster and the international benchmarking study currently coming to fruition.
The back page offers a view from a current, but retiring, chief executive on how to run a hospital trust. Dr Marc Goldman passes on his advice and wisdom to any successor. Roger Taylor, Director of public affairs sums up the edition and speaks forth on the role of commissioners.
Then there is the Sudoku to test the brain as well as a competition to win £6000 worth of Dr Foster analytics time to review an aspect of efficiency.
Download edition 2 of the DF Times.
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