How are GPs adopting digital innovation?

Kushal Barai examines three ways that GPs are working with digital innovation to create better care for their patients.

E-cigarettes: an evidence update

This expert independent evidence review concludes that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful to health than tobacco and have the potential to help smokers quit smoking. The review suggests that e-cigarettes may be contributing to falling smoking rates among adults and young people. Following the review Public Health England has published a paper on the implications of the evidence for policy and practice.

The impact of physical environments on employee wellbeing

This briefing provides an overview of the literature on the impact of particular elements of the physical work environment on employee wellbeing. It considers the office layout, office furniture, workplace lighting and temperature, and employee control over their work environment.

Measuring employee productivity

This briefing explores priority issues around health, work and unemployment. It includes information on measuring productivity, presenteeism (attending work whilst sick), productivity and wellbeing.

Systematic review and metaethnography to identify how effective, cost-effective, accessible and acceptable self-management support interventions are for men with long-term conditions (SELF-MAN)

Self-management support interventions can improve health outcomes, but their impact is limited by the numbers of patients able or willing to access them. Men’s attendance at, and engagement with, self-management support appears suboptimal despite their increased risk of developing serious and disabling long-term conditions (LTCs). This study aims to assess the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, accessibility and acceptability of self-management support interventions in men with LTCs.

Research utilisation and knowledge mobilisation in the commissioning and joint planning of public health interventions to reduce alcohol-related harms: a qualitative case design using a cocreation approach

Considerable resources are spent on research to establish what works to improve the nation’s health. If the findings from this research are used, better health outcomes can follow, but we know that these findings are not always used. In public health, evidence of what works may not ‘fit’ everywhere, making it difficult to know what to do locally. The aim of this study was to work in cocreation with research participants to investigate how research is utilised and knowledge mobilised in the commissioning and planning of public health services to reduce alcohol-related harms.

Integration and continuity of primary care: polyclinics and alternatives – a patient-centred analysis of how organisation constrains care co-ordination

The aim of this study was to examine what differences the organisational integration of primary care makes, compared with network governance, to horizontal and vertical co-ordination of care; what difference provider ownership makes; how much scope either structure allows for managerial discretion and ‘performance’; differences between networked and hierarchical governance regarding the continuity and integration of primary care; and the implications of the above for managerial practice in primary care.

Review of scientific services in the NHS

NHS Improving Quality, in conjunction with NHS England, carried out a survey of scientific services in the NHS 2014-15.

This is the second survey of the many services delivered by healthcare scientists, and builds on the survey carried out in 2013. Both surveys are focused specifically on the provision of scientific services over seven days. The survey was designed by the deputy and chief scientific officers and NHS Improving Quality (NHSIQ).

“To achieve the level of transformational change required we need informed commissioners with a clear understanding of how to commission high quality scientific and diagnostic services, provider organisations that recognise the complexity, challenges and opportunities these services bring and healthcare scientists to engage and collaborate beyond their services and organisational boundaries to drive the provision of seven day services for their patients”.

Professor Sue Hill Chief Scientific Officer, NHS England

Improving NHS culture

It is now accepted that healthy cultures in NHS organisations are crucial to ensuring the delivery of high-quality patient care. The Kings Fund has newly updated pages that look at the six characteristics of a healthy culture in the NHS. There is also a new tool to help organisations assess their culture, identifying the ways in which it is working well, as well as the areas that need to change.

Community engagement: improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities

This draft guideline from NICE covers approaches to community engagement to help communities improve their health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. The closing date for comments is 24 September 2015.