HSJ Health Check HSJ

This year sets the NHS one of its toughest financial challenges as pandemic cash dries up and funding shortfalls deepen.

We hear how three integrated care systems are already warning of significant consequences from the current financial requirements, and explore how the NHS plans to break even in 2024-25.

With Henry Anderson, Lawrence Dunhill and Nicholas Carding.

Send views and questions to annabelle.collins@hsj.co.uk.

You can listen to HSJ Health Check on this page, or subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and all the other popular podcast platforms.

 

This week guest host Ben Clover discusses alarming developments in urgent care plus the Silicon Valley firm getting established in the NHS, with HSJ reporters Emily Townsend and Joe Talora.

2022-23 was probably the worst ever winter for the NHS, after a steep collapse in performance. This year’s been a little better — new figures confirm — but how was this achieved, and what does it mean for coming months?

 

This week’s HSJ Health Check podcast reviews the latest figures on emergency care performance — across A&E waits, ambulance delays and response times, discharge and length of stay.

On nearly all measures, services have been better this winter than the year before, but only a little bit, and still well down on 2019 levels, which were already poor. 

We discuss what the service did to claw back performance, and the prospects for the coming year.

With Dave West, Matt Discombe and Alison Moore.

Send views and questions to dave.west@hsj.co.uk.

On this episode we discuss the quality of maternity services in the NHS, which have remained firmly in the spotlight.

We cover a recent HSJ investigation into delayed inductions of labour and cover the broader challenges facing maternity services amid multiple inquiries and more 'inadequate' CQC ratings. 

Also more on why families whose babies died in the East Kent maternity scandal are still having to prove legal liability to get any compensation. 

With one working day left before the new financial year, the NHS’s instructions for 2024-25 have finally been published.

 

HSJ’s James Illman, Annabelle Collins, and Dave West unpack what's in this year’s guidance and talk more about the sticking points that caused the long delay.

HSJ revealed this week the cost of building “40 new hospitals” in the NHS has increased by £4bn, so on this episode we dig into what’s driving this and if it will get past the Treasury. 

 

Also this week  – when PFI deals go wrong and how a fire at the Whittington Hospital in north London has led to a High Court case.