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NHS England has announced £101 million of new funding to support and spread the work of the new care model vanguards. The vanguards are partnerships of NHS, local government, voluntary, community and other organisations that are implementing plans to improve the healthcare people receive, prevent ill health and save funds. Considerable progress has been made since the vanguards were launched in 2015 and there is emerging evidence that they are making significant improvements at a local level. This includes reducing pressure on busy GP and A&E services. In addition to the funding, the vanguards will continue to receive support from NHS England and other national bodies to implement their plans, including how they harness new technology including apps and shared computer systems. They are also receiving help to develop their workforce so that it is organised around patients and their local populations.
Read more: NHS England announces £101 million of new funding for new care model vanguards
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A team of researchers found several potentially “fatal” security flaws in 10 different medical implants.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and the University of Leuven in Belgium discovered vulnerabilities in the software and signals that communicate with implant devices. The software is used to update the devices or gather data readings on a patient.
By experimenting with the bugs, the researchers were able to change the settings on the devices and in some cases shut them down entirely as well as steal sensitive medical data about the patient.
The device manufacturer name has not been disclosed but researchers said the bugs have since been patched by the maker before the research paper was made public. The researchers only studied one manufacturer but added that its products are widely used by healthcare professionals.
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A five-year plan to increase the budget by £8bn a year by 2020 was only set out last year, but now hospital bosses have warned that is not enough. Chris Hopson, of NHS Providers, said the settlement needed to be redrawn. It comes as the half-year accounts for 2016-17 showed hospitals and other NHS trusts were failing to keep in budget. From April to September trusts overspent by £648m - this is despite hospitals being given an extra £1.8bn this year to bail them out following last year's record deficit of £2.45bn.
Mr Hopson's comments plus the emerging deficit puts the pressure on ministers ahead of the Autumn Statement next Wednesday. This will be the first time the government under Theresa May's leadership has outlined its spending priorities. All the indications to date are that ministers are not prepared to give the NHS more money, although there have been rumours that council-run care services could see investment to help reduce demands on the health service.
Read more: NHS £8bn budget plan 'not enough', say hospital bosses
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A test email sent by accident to 850,000 NHS workers has caused utter chaos after being sent from an apparently incorrectly configured email distribution list.
The sender, identified only as R, sent the blank message with a subject line that simply read "test" to a distribution list called CroydonPractices, according to health service workers.
The message somehow found its way to all NHS.net email addresses – and was immediately magnified by thoughtless people hitting "reply" to point out the error and demand they be removed.
Sources said actual work emails were delayed by at least three hours at the time of writing, thanks to the huge volumes of traffic snarling up NHS.net servers. By 11.30am 70 or 80 people had replied to the message, inadvertently copying it to all 850k NHS employee addresses.
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World-leading Papworth Hospital has escaped a full-on zero-day crypto ransomware attack thanks to the "very, very lucky" timing of its daily backup.
It's believed that an on-duty nurse at the heart and lung hospital in Cambridgeshire, UK, unwittingly clicked on something in an infected email, activating the attack at about 11pm on a Saturday night a few months back.
But the malware did not start encrypting files until after midnight – just after the daily backup had completed, ICT director Jane Berezynskyj has said.
The NHS foundation trust had made recovery plans and recruited experienced staff following earlier attacks, but Berezynskyj said: "We were also very, very lucky. Timing absolutely was everything for us."
