House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Emergency Admissions to Hospital - HC 885 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Emergency Admissions to Hospital - HC 885 write by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts. This book was released on 2014-03-04. House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Emergency Admissions to Hospital - HC 885 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Nearly one fifth of consultant posts in emergency departments were either vacant or filled by locums in 2012. Neither the Department nor NHS England have a clear strategy to tackle the shortage of A&E consultants and there is too much reliance on temporary staff to fill gaps. The Committee raised the possibility of paying consultants more to work at struggling hospitals. Greater use in A&E of consultants from other departments could also be made, or mandate that all trainee consultants spend time in A&E, or make A&E positions more attractive through improved terms and conditions. The slow introduction of round-the-clock consultant cover in hospitals - which will not be in place before the end of 2016-17 - is also having a negative impact. More people die as a result of being admitted at the weekend when fewer consultants are in A&E. Changing this relies on the British Medical Association and NHS Employers negotiating a more flexible consultants' contract, and neither the Department nor NHS England has direct control over the timescale or details of these negotiations. Hospitals, GPs and community health services all have a role to play in reducing emergency admissions - but financial incentives to make this happen are not in place. While hospitals get no money if patients are readmitted within 30 days, there are no financial incentives for community and social care services to reduce emergency admissions. Both the Department of Health and NHS England struggled to explain to us who is ultimately accountable for the efficient delivery of local A&E services
HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15
HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 write by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts. This book was released on 2015. HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002
NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002 write by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts. This book was released on 2014-04-29. NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. NHS patients have the right to receive elective pre-planned consultant-led care within 18 weeks of being referred for treatment. In 2012-13, there were 19.1 million referrals to hospitals in England, with hospital-related costs of around £16 billion. The standards are that 90% of patients admitted to hospital, and 95% of other patients, should have started treatment within 18 weeks of being referred. In April 2013, NHS England introduced zero tolerance of any patient waiting more than 52 weeks. The Department of Health cannot be sure that the waiting time data NHS England publishes, based on information from NHS trust, is accurate. Trusts are struggling with a hotchpotch of IT and paper based systems that are not easily pulled together, which makes it difficult for them to track and collate the patient information needed to manage and record patients' waiting time. The National Audit Office (NAO) found that waiting times for nearly a third of cases it reviewed at seven trusts were not supported by documented evidence, and that a further 26% were simply wrong. Multiple organisations have a quality assurance role. However the external audit provided in the past by the Audit Commission has yet to be replaced and the Department acknowledged the need to do so, with regular spot checks being undertaken to ensure accuracy. But responsibilities have not been clearly defined.
COMPASS: Provision of Asylum Accommodation - HC 1000
COMPASS: Provision of Asylum Accommodation - HC 1000 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook COMPASS: Provision of Asylum Accommodation - HC 1000 write by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts. This book was released on 2014-04-24. COMPASS: Provision of Asylum Accommodation - HC 1000 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. At any one time the Home Office (the Department) provides accommodation for around 23,000 destitute asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of their application to remain in the UK. The cost of providing this accommodation in 2011-12 was £150 million. In March 2012 the Department decided to introduce a new delivery model involving fewer and bigger housing providers than under previous contracts. There are now six regional contracts (known collectively as COMPASS), delivered by three prime contractors (G4S, Serco and Clearel, each of which has two contracts): these replaced 22 separate contracts with 13 different suppliers from across the private and voluntary sectors and local authorities. Savings of £140 million over seven years are forecast. The decision to rely on fewer, larger contractors was risky and has so far led to delays in providing suitable accommodation. The Department expected this to result in economies of scale. However, it is inconsistent with the Government's wider approach of encouraging more small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) to supply services to government. The transition to the new contracts was poorly managed: the three month mobilisation period for the contracts was very challenging. The Department has incurred additional costs and so is less likely to achieve the expected savings. The standard of the accommodation provided has often been unacceptably poor for a very fragile group of individuals and families and the companies failed to improve quality in a timely manner.
HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools
HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools write by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts. This book was released on 2014-05-09. HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Recent high-profile failures demonstrate that the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency's oversight arrangements for free schools are not yet working effectively. The Department and Agency have set up an approach to oversight which emphasises schools' autonomy, but standards of financial management and governance in some free schools are clearly not up to scratch. The Agency relies on high levels of compliance by schools, yet fewer than half of free schools submitted their required financial returns for 2011-12 to the Agency on time. Whistleblowers played a major role in uncovering recent scandals when problems should have been identified through the Agency's monitoring processes. There is also concern that applications for new free schools are not emerging from areas of greatest forecast need for more and better school places. The Department needs to set out how, and by when, it will encourage applications from areas with a high or severe forecast need for extra schools places, working with local authorities where appropriate. The Department should also be more open about the reasons for making decisions. Capital costs of the free school programme are escalating. The most recent round of approved free schools had a greater proportion of more expensive types, such as secondaries, special and alternative provision, located in more expensive regions such as London, the South East and South West. If this mix of approved free schools continues, there is a risk of costs exceeding available funding.
