The Department of Health has agreed to fund a host of charities to develop their skills as commissioning support organisations.

Macmillan Cancer Support, Arthritis Care and Epilepsy Action are amongst the organisations awarded a grant of £56,500 from the DH’s Innovation, Excellence and Service Development Fund.

Ciarán Devane (pictured), Chief Executive of Macmillan, said the grant will help the charity move one step closer to achieving “the best clinical outcomes and patient experience for all cancer patients”.

The charities will work alongside the Neurological Commissioning Support (NCS) as part of its programme to support health and social care commissioners.

NCS was established by the MS Society, Parkinson’s UK and the Motor Neurone Disease Association to provide advice and expertise to public sector commissioners.

The body worked with the DH to highlight how patient services and value for money could be improved further if charities were involved to develop their skills to advise commissioners.

Since then, it has been awarded funding as part of a development programme for the new two years.

“The voluntary sector hasn’t been seen as a credible partner for health and social care commissioning in the past, but the shift towards local commissioning provides a real opportunity to change that,” said Sue Thomas, Chief Executive of NCS. “Charities can reach out and engage people living with particular conditions, unlocking this previously untapped source of expertise.”

The £3.3m Innovation, Excellence and Service Development Fund currently supports 57 projects around the country.

The structural upheaval in the NHS is disrupting the roles of senior nurses who oversee quality and safety in hospitals, according to Nursing Times.

The journal reported that the impending end of the PCTs has tripled the turnover rate of senior hospital staff responsible for monitoring and reviewing quality.

Senior nurses are leaving PCTs for roles in the NHS CB, CCGs or commissioning support services, leaving hospitals short of clinical expertise.

A study by Health Service Journal looked at how the announcement in July 2010 of the coming end of PCTs affected hospitals.

It found that in the 16 months following that date, the turnover of PCT directors responsible for overseeing the quality of hospital care increased from 19 to 65, and the turnover of chairs of regular quality review meetings increased from 18 to 56, relative to the previous 16 months.

About two-thirds of these director and chair roles were held by senior nurses.

The findings have prompted comparisons with the Mid Staffordshire FT investigation, which revealed a link between loss of continuity at senior clinical level and failures to protect patient safety.

Sheffield University Hospitals Foundation Trust Chief Nurse Hilary Chapman emphasised the need for hospitals to retain senior clinical staff.

CCGs should only take over hospital management when they have proved they can monitor quality, she argued, while insufficiently experienced nurses should not take on such responsibilities.

A new guideline to improve the management and mortality rate of acute upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding has been published by NICE.

It includes key recommendations such as the continued use of low-dose aspirin for secondary prevention of vascular events and patients with severe GI bleeding being offered endoscopy immediately after resuscitation.

Despite changes in the management of the condition, mortality rates have not improved in half a century with around 5,000 deaths per year in the UK recorded.

Professor Mark Baker, Director of the Centre for Clinical Practice at NICE, hoped the guideline would be a “useful aid to all healthcare professionals”.

Bleeding in the oesophagus, stomach or duodenum is the most common emergency managed by gastroenterologists in the UK – resulting in 50,000 hospital admissions annually.

It is estimated that around 1 in 10 admissions for upper GI bleeding end in the patient’s death.

The new guideline also recommends endoscopy being offered within 24 hours of admission to all other patients with upper GI bleeding and interventional radiology to unstable patients who re-bleed after endoscopic treatment.

“Although there have been changes in how upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding is managed, mortality has not improved much over the past 50 years and thousands of people still die from the condition every year,” said Professor Baker.

“We are, therefore, pleased to be publishing this guideline on the management of acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding.”

Risk assessment, resuscitation and initial management, timing of endoscopy, controlling bleeding and preventing re-bleeding, plus information and support for patients and carers are also addressed within the guideline.

Communications group OPEN Health has entered into a new venture with the experienced Carwyn Jones to create Channel Health.

The new business will deliver a range of products and services in the digital arena to clients working in the healthcare sector.

David Rowley, Founding Partner, OPEN Health, said the new venture will “add value” to existing clients whilst utilising Carwyn’s “unique expertise in the digital arena”.

Mr Jones most recently led the pharmaceutical business at Doctors.net.uk, where he was responsible for commercial activity within healthcare. Prior to that, he worked at Eli Lilly, GSK and Sudler & Hennessey in various roles across sales, marketing, and strategy divisions.

“Channel Health will be a unique digital business in the healthcare arena, and in partnership with OPEN Health, will be able to deliver a broad range of digital products and services,” said Carwyn Jones (pictured), Managing Director, Channel Health. “I am very excited about the possibilities that this new venture will bring.”

Growing pressure on specialist facilities is affecting hospitals across Scotland, with seriously ill patients regularly being ‘boarded out’ to general wards.

A lack of specialist hospital beds and consultants is putting patients at risk, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh has warned.

The College’s survey found that two-thirds of hospital consultants said boarding was increasingly prevalent, while nearly all said it was harmful to patients.

Over the last decade, the average patient throughput per acute hospital bed in Scotland rose from 45 to 56 per year, while the number of acute hospital beds fell from 18,000 to 16,700 and the consultant workforce remained static.

Boarding out of patients from specialist wards used only to happen in winter, the College said, but is now the norm throughout the year.

The College’s President, Neil Dewhurst, commented: “Boarding creates a vicious circle, delaying treatment and discharge for patients and adding considerably to the workload of the healthcare teams caring for them.”

The Scottish Health Department, which has asked health boards to report on winter boarding levels since 2009, said it took the new findings very seriously.

“Boarding has always been recognised as poor practice, but now in the work that has been driven by the Scottish government we have the potential to measure the adverse impact on the quality of care, patient experience, and costs,” said Derek Bell, Professor of Acute Medicine at Imperial College London.

“As the boarding problem exists across the healthcare system, it requires whole-system solutions.”