Nearly half of recently qualified GPs are experiencing rising levels of stress, while over a quarter say they don’t have time to deliver the care patients need.

Of 368 GPs surveyed by the BMA who qualified in 2006 (from a cohort of 435), 40% said their morale had deteriorated in the last 12 months.

The respondents identified the current NHS structural reforms – claimed by the Government to be ‘empowering’ GPs – as a major reason for this decline in the professional experience of primary care.

However, 92% said that interactions with patients improved their morale – showing that patients being more unwell or more demanding was not a major issue.

The 2012 survey found that 44% of respondents said their stress levels had worsened over 2012, 20% reported ‘unacceptable’ levels of stress at work, and 28% said they did not have time to deliver the care that patients needed.

In addition, more than half (54%) identified understaffing as a major problem in their practices, while more than three quarters (79%) said work-related administration duties negatively affected their time outside work.

The BMA said the survey's evidence of declining patient access to NHS primary care of adequate quality was “troubling”.

The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has been placed under administration by Monitor, the NHS economic regulator.

A report for Monitor said the Trust was “unsustainable” and recommended closing down its maternity, A&E and intensive care units.

The first Foundation Trust to go into administration, Mid Staffs will be run for the next 145 days by two analysts from Ernst & Young before it is reconfigured.

The report stated that the services it recommended for closure could be provided at hospitals in North Staffordshire, Wolverhampton and Walsall.

While Monitor said the Francis report was not the reason for its decision, it warned that Mid Staffs was “neither clinically nor financially sustainable”.

Mid Staffs received a £20m bailout in 2012, pending the Francis report’s publication. The report, which listed the Trust’s failures during four years in which over 400 patients died through neglect, did not inspire confidence in its future.

The administrators will seek to work with local commissioners and other healthcare organisations to produce a long-term plan for service delivery. Current services will continue during the 145-day administration period.

A local campaign group, Support Stafford, has called the plans for shutting down acute services in Stafford “unacceptable”.

Jeremy Lefroy, Conservative MP for Stafford, commented: “There is a vital need to retain acute services in Stafford and Cannock because the capacity elsewhere is simply not there.

“They also need to consider the huge disadvantage to local people who would have to travel much longer distances for their treatment, but also for hospital visitors who would have to do the same.”

Monitor has placed Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust under administration, saying it cannot be sustained in its current form.

The combination of the trust’s current financial difficulties and the impact of the Francis report has proved impossible to surmount.

Monitor will appoint special administrators to run Mid Staffs and plan its reorganisation – with options including the dissolution of the trust.

Mid Staffs is the second Foundation Trust to be placed under administration this year: the first, South London, was judged to have failed financially but not clinically, with PFI debts being a major factor.

Mid Staffs is also facing financial problems, having been bailed out with £20m from the DH in 2012, and having to cut its costs by 7% this year. Its small size – only two acute hospitals – counts against it economically.

However, it is also under pressure not to let its clinical standards slip, following the Francis report into over 400 preventable deaths at Stafford Hospital from 2004 to 2008.

The growing panic in the trust was exposed when a Stafford Hospital paramedic abused health campaigner Julie Bailey on Twitter, saying that he hoped she became seriously ill and found the nearest hospital shut down.

Julie Bailey’s ‘Cure the NHS’ campaign is credited with having led to the Mid Staffs enquiry. Her mother was among the people who died due to serious medical neglect at Stafford Hospital.

Monitor sent a ‘contingency planning team’ into Mid Staffs five months ago. Its report into “sustainable options for alternative clinical models in the area” will shortly be published, the regulator said.

The special administrators will have 150 days to develop a plan for service reconfiguration, working with local commissioners.

Professor John Caldwell, Chairman of Mid Staffordshire FT, said: “We have accepted for some time that MSFT working alone cannot produce a long lasting solution to the issues we face to ensure financial and clinical sustainability.”

Given that the financial constraints of FT status previously led the trust to experience a disastrous breakdown of care, finding a solution there is a key challenge for the NHS reform programme.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) plans redundancies in its European sales and administration force to help it cut £1bn from its annual European, R&D and manufacturing costs by 2016.

The London-based pharma giant said it will achieve most of the cost reductions through technical improvements in its R&D and manufacturing processes.

According to CEO Andrew Witty, the cost savings plan has been driven by drug pricing pressures across Europe as the recession continues to worsen.

He also noted that job cuts would primarily affect sales and administration staff across Europe, but did not indicate the likely numbers.

Witty emphasised that GSK has six new drugs (including treatments for HIV, type 2 diabetes, melanoma and asthma) under review by regulatory bodies, with late-stage clinical trial data expected for another nine products within two years.

The company aims to launch up to 15 products within three years, he told business analysts. But given the economic uncertainties affecting Europe, 2013 would be a year of “twists and turns” and “not everything is going to go smoothly”.

According to a company spokeswoman, the technical and staffing changes (including redundancy payments) will have a combined one-off cost of £1.5bn, and will primarily be focused on Europe.

The Department of Health’s Matthew Kershaw has been appointed as the trust special administrator at the failed South London Healthcare Trust.

The Director of Provider Delivery will combine chair and chief executive responsibilities after it made history by becoming the first trust to enter administration following debts of £65m last year.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said Mr Kershaw “must now drive the changes and shape a sustainable solution” at the trust.

As part of his new duties, Mr Kershaw will be required to produce a draft report containing recommendations for the future of the trust before Parliament by the end of October. This will then be submitted to the Health Secretary before he makes a final decision on the way forward for the trust by February 2013.

The DH said that the newly appointed trust administrator would be supported by “a dedicated expert team including an independent clinical panel as well as NHS and external strategic advice. In particular, he will bring together a clinical advisory panel”.

Merck saw revenues increase by 3.8% to €2.5 billion and net profit rise 7.5% to €227 million in the third quarter after solid performances by its pharmaceuticals and Millipore divisions.

Revenues at Merck Serono increased 5.4% to €1.4bn after increased global sales of Rebif and Erbitux (pictured) whilst its Millipore division saw revenue reach €588 million compared to €559 million the same period a year ago.

Karl-Ludwig Kley, Chairman of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, says the results leave the Group “well positioned as we head into the end of the year”.

Its Executive Board now forecasts annual Group revenues between €10-10.2 billion and the debt resulting from the 2010 acquisition of Millipore to decrease at an “excellent pace”.

Administration expenses were down 2.7% to €124 million with other operating expenses and income also declining slightly by 1.3%. R&D costs increased to €371 million in Q3 due to a combination of late-stage clinical trials and the strong Swiss franc.

Earnings before interest and tax were also down 8.4% with underlying core operating result – which excludes Merck Serono and Millipore – decreasing by 21.5% of revenues as a result of the weakening of the Performance Materials division, the Group claimed.

Generic organic revenue growth in Merck Serono increased nearly 9% after its multiple sclerosis treatment Rebif recorded global sales of €426 million and the cancer treatment Erbitux earned € 218 million, primarily as a result of growth in emerging markets.

“The Merck Group produced solid third-quarter revenue growth in a difficult environment, driven mainly by good performances from the Merck Serono and Merck Millipore divisions,” said Karl-Ludwig Kley. “We are making progress in driving our change agenda forward and we will provide important updates on this endeavour in the first half of 2012.”