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Health See other Health Articles Title: Hospitals to face financial penalties for readmissions Hospitals will face financial penalties if patients are readmitted as an emergency within 30 days of being discharged, under government plans. The scheme will be unveiled on Tuesday by Andrew Lansley, in his first major speech as the new health secretary. Hospitals in England will be paid for initial treatment but not paid again if a patient is brought back in with a related problem, he will say. It has been argued that patients are being discharged early to free up beds. The Conservatives have said cuts to the number of hospital beds under Labour put pressure on NHS staff to discharge people without support. Between 1998-99 and 2007-08, the number of emergency readmissions in England rose 52% from 359,719 to 546,354. Speaking about his vision for the NHS, Mr Lansley will call for patients to be given more control over their healthcare. He is also expected to give hospitals the responsibility of looking after patients' health and well-being for up to a month after they are discharged. Continuity of care Currently primary care trusts and GPs look after patients once they are discharged from hospital. Under the plan hospitals would receive funding for the first hospital stay plus treatment for the patient's first 30 days after discharge. Mr Lansley will promise to "empower patients as well as health professionals" and "disempower the hierarchy and the bureaucracy". "I want the service to listen to patients, to take responsibility, to realise how much patients know about their need, especially for those living with long-term conditions." Mr Lansley will say that targets focused on processes, data returns and more Department of Health circulars will not achieve these aims. Neither will "pointless structural upheavals or increasing the number of administrators in primary care trusts, nor even just by supplying more money". Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Lansley said the Government was "very clear" that it would increase the NHS budget every year in real terms to meet the demands on the service. "What I am saying today is in part about focusing on patient safety and on better care for patients. "This safer, better care is also more cost effective and if I can cut, as I will do, the cost of bureaucracy, the cost of administration, cut out waste in the NHS, then we can get those resources to support increasing quality for patients." He said one of the objectives of cutting waste and working more effectively in the NHS would be in order to find money to fund new drugs, such as those for cancer.
Poster Comment: What a laugh - politicians are always thinking of new and novel evil ways to cut costs on "free" health care. Giving hospitals a dis-incentive to readmit patients with complications works for socialist governments to delete "entitlements" without actually saying so. Evil.
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#2. To: scrapper2 (#0)
The word "evil" sums it up entirely. A guy has a heart attack on May 1st, goes to hospital. On May 28 he falls down the stairs because he trips, goes to the hospital with a broken neck. To unrelated incidents - bureaucrat's solution? Penalize somebody who had nothing to do with the bad things and who was helping solve the problem. Brilliant.
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