While the review on allowing NHS patients to pay 'top-ups' without jeopardising the right to free care gathers data, a debate on this emotive subject showed that opinion in the sector is polarised
A government-backed investment fund for third sector organisations has helped form the largest social enterprise consortium of its kind to provide out-of-hours health care
Plans by Ofsted to outsource its early education and childcare work have provoked trade union warnings that inspections could be 'severely compromised'.
An expert panel on NHS change has insisted its decision to back the reduction of services at two hospitals will lead to 'high-quality' local health services
More than 270,000 civil servants will start a national strike ballot over pay next week, after senior government ministers failed to stem the momentum among public sector unions for widespread...
London's £16bn Crossrail project seemed finally to have left its troubled past behind when Gordon Brown approved it last year. But as the economic crisis worsens, doubts are growing and the scheme...
The NHS is looking at extending the choice of care and treatment to community level. But primary care trusts will have to reconfigure their services in a radical way if patients are to be offered...
A King's Fund report has said that the postcode lottery for patients with serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease persists, in spite of attempts to address it.
An internal report has produced a damning indictment of Cardiff Council children's services, which are likely to miss all but two of 20 main performance targets for 2008/09.
The performance of health boards in providing day surgery varies widely across Scotland, although the service has improved during the past decade, an Audit Scotland survey has found.
The troubled Social Fund, which provides grants and loans to benefit claimants, has had its accounts qualified for the second year running after auditors identified £85m worth of errors in...
NHS foundation trusts are aiming to make surpluses totalling £339m this financial year more than 90% up on last year's predicted levels, the regulator Monitor has revealed.
Legal services provided to health bodies in Northern Ireland are being brought in-house as part of the fallout from a massive fraud committed by a firm of solicitors against the Department of Health...
An Audit Commission study revealing significant levels of error in the coding that underpins the payment-by-results system should be a call to action for both providers and commissioners, NHS leaders...
MPs have called for a shake-up of the 'outdated' system of benefits for the millions of carers who look after elderly or disabled relatives or friends.
Former Local Government Association chair Lord Bruce-Lockhart has died of cancer at the age of 66. A former leader of Kent County Council, Sandy Bruce-Lockhart was LGA chair from 2004 to 2007, where...
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has finally authorised the use of a drug that could prevent thousands of people from going blind.
The Scottish Government is to publish a national plan to improve services for the terminally ill, following an Audit Scotland report that calls for a more consistent approach to palliative care.
The huge number of gleaming new hospitals are a testament to the success of the Private Finance Initiative. But can the policy survive now that it is no longer the only game in town? Mark Hellowell...
Plans to replace 46 local fire control rooms with nine regional centres will cost more than double the government's estimates and almost nine times as much as first planned, the firefighters' union...
