National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
This study aims to investigate the interplay of service factors that influence decision-making about emergency patient admissions and to understand how the medical assessment process is experienced by patients, carers and medical staff.
The arts are increasingly recognised as having the potential to support health and wellbeing. However, in order for arts to be included in commissioning of health and social care services, there needs to be robust evidence of their effectiveness, impacts and costs. This document suggests a standard framework for reporting of project activities that will strengthen understanding of what works in specific contexts and enable realistic assessment and appropriate comparisons to be made between programmes.
Public Health England (PHE)
This resource aims to help frontline professionals and providers working in community settings and commissioners maintain a holistic approach to the people dying, caring or bereaved. It provides information to help ensure that commissioning and delivery of services and practice takes account of spiritual needs of the six largest faith groups in England and remains appropriate to the community setting in which they work.
National Audit Office
This report covers the overall arrangements for managing the supply of NHS clinical staff, covering a range of different bodies. Specifically, this report examines whether the supply of clinical staff in the NHS is being effectively managed.
Health Foundation
Analysis finds that pressure normally seen during winter months is now increasingly visible at other times of the year. Other key findings include increase in A&E attendances each year and a lack of data to quantify pressure on primary and community services in winter.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists has published Old Problems, New Solutions: Improving Acute Psychiatric Care for Adults in England. This report is the result of an independent commission which found that access to acute care for severely ill adult mental health patients is inadequate nationally and, in some cases, potentially dangerous. It also highlighted that there were major problems both in admissions to psychiatric wards and in providing alternative care and treatment in the community.
The Commission’s report recommends significant changes to how services are commissioned, organised and monitored across the mental health system. It also calls for faster access to acute care and an end to sending severely-ill mental health patients long distances for treatment.
1. Grainger, T. NHS England News. What’s new in the world of digital primary care.
We are now well into 2016 and January has been such a busy month, moving full speed ahead with lots of public engagements, giving me the chance to talk about our key priorities and our great work in Primary Care as well as what we have planned throughout the year.
The children’s health digital strategy is gathering pace rapidly and our first design workshop was a great success. The level of feedback and involvement from participants has been extremely positive and creating a lot of energy amongst health care providers, commissioners and supplier market.
The input so far has really helped us to shape the Children’s Digital Strategy. We now have an initial draft that is being refined as we gather more intelligence and input from our different stakeholders.
Read the full article here
2. Illman, J. HSJ. Hunt says £1.8bn will be spent on ‘paper free NHS’.
Jeremy Hunt said in an announcement today that £1.8bn was being earmarked to “create a paper free NHS”. However, details such as how it compares to previously announced funding, and the source of the money, remain unclear.
The £1.8bn announced is the largest figure so far linked to the programme to bring about paper free at the point of care services by 2020.
It appears to be an increase on the commitment in the government’s November spending review to spend £1bn by 2020-21 on the digital drive.
However, HSJ has confirmed today’s announcement does not involve any new money being assigned to the NHS by the Treasury. Instead it relates to how the Department of Health’s already agreed funding will be spent.
Read the full article here
Illman, J. HSJ. ‘Flip’ incentives to get NHS using tech, says US digital guru.
US digital health expert Professor Robert Wachter has said finding ways to change the financial and regulatory incentives in the NHS to encourage digital adoption is one of the “fundamental challenges” for his government-backed review.
Speaking exclusively to HSJ about his review, which Jeremy Hunt said in October was part of trying to ensure the NHS becomes a world leading digital health system, he talked about addressing several overarching challenges.
These included clinical engagement, the balance between central and local leadership, and financial and regulatory incentives.
Read the full article here
Kossarova, L. et al. Nuffield trust. Published online: 8 February 2016
This report highlights what the problems are in current health care services for children and young people, and investigates how emerging new models of care could provide an opportunity to address these.
‘The future of child health services: new models of care’ sets out examples of emerging new ways of delivering care for children and young people.
The report describes the current state of child health and quality of care in the UK, including problems around increasing use of hospitals to treat conditions that could be dealt with in other settings; capacity issues in primary care; and the often disjointed care provided between hospitals and the community. It then looks some examples of new models of care – which have been emerging both within the Vanguard scheme and inspired by it – and how they are responding to these issues.
The report is based on a workshop run by the Nuffield Trust, as well as on presentations, discussions, case study materials submitted by representatives of the new models who attended the workshop, and published literature. It is the first report in our new series ‘The future of…’, which is looking at the future of service delivery in various specialisms within the health service.
Read the full report here
Read the related blog post here
MHFA training for staff working in elderly care gives promising results
Objectives: Epidemiological studies have shown a high prevalence of mental illness among the elderly. Clinical data however indicate both insufficient detection and treatment of illnesses. Suggested barriers to treatment include conceptions that mental health symptoms belong to normal aging and lack of competence among staff in elderly care in detecting mental illness. A Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training program for the elderly was developed and provided to staff in elderly care. The aim of this study was to investigate changes in knowledge in mental illness, confidence in helping a person, readiness to give help and attitudes towards persons with mental illness.
Method: Single group pre-test–post-test design.
Results: The study group included staff in elderly care from different places in Sweden (n = 139). Significant improvements in knowledge, confidence in helping an elderly person with mental illness and attitudes towards persons with mental illness are shown. Skills acquired during the course have been practiced during the follow-up.
Conclusions: The adaption of MHFA training for staff working in elderly care gives promising results. Improvements in self-reported confidence in giving help, attitudes towards persons with mental illness and actual help given to persons with mental illness are shown. However, the study design allows no firm conclusions and a randomized controlled trail is needed to investigate the effectiveness of the program. Outcomes should include if the detection and treatment of mental illness among the elderly actually improved.
Full reference: Bengt Svenssona & Lars Hansson, Mental health first aid for the elderly: A pilot study of a training program adapted for helping elderly people. Aging & Mental Health Published online: Feb 2016
The National COPD Audit Programme has published Pulmonary Rehabilitation: Steps to breathe better National Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Audit Programme: Clinical audit of Pulmonary Rehabilitation services in England and Wales 2015.
This is the second COPD pulmonary rehabilitation audit report. Its recommendations are directed collectively to commissioners, provider organisations, referrers for pulmonary rehabilitation and to pulmonary rehabilitation practitioners themselves. The report identifies two broad areas for improvement: firstly action to improve referral and access to pulmonary rehabilitation; and secondly action to improve the quality of treatment when patients attend pulmonary rehabilitation.
Quality Improvement News 