Welfare Reform on the Web (October 2010): National Health Service - funding

English patients will keep paying to park

Anon

Daily Telegraph, Sept. 17th 2010, p. 12

The government has announced that patients in England will have to continue to pay for hospital car parking, which is free in the rest of the UK. Outlawing the charges would cost the NHS £100m per year at a time of financial difficulty.

Foundations seek to halt automatic pay rises

S. Gainsbury and C. Santry

Health Service Journal, Sept. 23rd 2010, p. 4-5

Foundation trusts in five of the 10 strategic health authority regions are drawing up plans to freeze automatic pay increments due under Agenda for Change in order to make cost savings of 4-5% per year over the next four years. No foundation trust has announced its plans publicly as all hope that the Department of Health will impose a national freeze.

Health and social care costs for young adults with epilepsy

J. Beecham and others

Health and Social Care in the Community, vol. 18, 2010, p. 465-473

This study aims to inform UK policy discussion and development by collating existing information about health and social care support for young adults with epilepsy after transition to adult services and the costs of such support. There are approximately 42,000 young adults with epilepsy costing the UK health and social care budgets £715.3m per year, or £17,000 per person. However unmet service needs suggest that this figure may be too low, although this study does not estimate the shortfall.

The nature of healthcare costs and financial risk in commissioning

R. Jones

British Journal of Healthcare Management, vol. 16, 2010, p. 424-430

A cycle of profit and loss, which commenced in the early 1960s, exists in the US health insurance industry. Each cycle appears to be initiated by a 6% step-like increase in costs which occurs at an interval of between 3 to 8 years. These step-like increases appear to coincide with step changes in admissions, case mix and complexity. A similar pattern relating to medical emergency admissions has operated in the UK for at least 20 years. The implications of this behaviour for the financial risk inherent in commissioning in England are discussed in this article.