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** 25 April 2023
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** UK
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** NHSE “turns the screws” on dozens of trusts without acceptable financial plan (#1)
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** International
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** Portugal: This is what a mountain of 650,000 cigarette butts looks like after big clean up (#2)
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** US: San Francisco schools take Altria to trial over “vaping crisis” (#3)
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** UK
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** NHSE “turns the screws” on dozens of trusts without acceptable financial plan
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** NHS England’s chief finance officer has reprimanded local health service leaders for their inability to produce balanced plans almost a month into the finance year.
Julian Kelly told CEOs that around a quarter of trust submissions for 2023-24 were still unacceptable, according to several leaders on a national call on Wednesday last week.
Guidance states integrated care systems, which include trusts and commissioning boards, have a statutory duty to break even.
Sources said NHSE was now “turning the screws” with members of the national finance team going through trust plans to identify further savings.
One acute truss boss, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the pressure from NHSE was “intense”, adding: “Every trust in the country is having to go back and take more out of its budget.”
However, another said the national scrutiny was because some provider plans “don’t really make sense”, and that the negotiations between trusts, ICSs and NHSE were like “games of poker”.
The planning process has been extended after providers and commissioning boards were unable to set balanced budgets by the end of March deadline.
HSJ reported previously that trusts were planning efficiency savings as high as 7% of turnover, while research has suggested trusts averaged efficiency savings of about 1 per cent per year in the years running up to the pandemic.
Source: HSJ, 24 April 2023
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** International
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** Portugal: This is what a mountain of 650,000 cigarette butts looks like after big clean up
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** Climate activists piled up a mountain of 650,000 butts collected in just one week in Portugal’s capital Lisbon.
They collected enough dog ends to fill 40 plastic containers, in a bid to raise awareness of how plastic hidden in cigarette butts contributes towards pollution.
German campaigner, Andreas Noe, wore a special breathing apparatus to protect him from toxins as he stood on top of the pile in Comercio Square.
Noe, 34, said: “We asked everyone in Portugal to take part in this community project to raise awareness about plastic pollution, because plastic is hidden in cigarette butts and many people don’t know it.”
The simple cigarette butt was a “beautiful example of how someone can start to take action” against littering, ocean pollution and ultimately, the climate crisis, he added.
Source: Metro, 24 April 2023
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** US: San Francisco schools take Altria to trial over “vaping crisis”
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**
A lawyer for San Francisco's public school system on Monday kicked off a long-awaited trial against Altria Group Inc, claiming the tobacco giant helped e-cigarette company Juul Labs Inc create a "crisis" of vaping addiction among teenagers.
"This case is about Altria, the largest cigarette company in our country, who helped hook a whole new generation of our young people on nicotine, causing a vaping crisis, a youth epidemic," Thomas Cartmell, a lawyer for the San Francisco Unified School District, told jurors in San Francisco federal court.
Beth Wilkinson, a lawyer for Altria, told the jury in her opening statement that the company had aimed to boost sales among cigarette smokers seeking a less harmful option, not among teens.
The school district had also sued Juul, which settled that lawsuit last year. Cartmell told jurors that Altria, which was Juul's largest investor from 2018 until earlier this year, was "at the heart" of Juul's strategy to grow its business by appealing to teenagers with sweet flavours and flashy advertising.
Source: Reuters, 24 April 2023
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