The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has published Professional standards for the reporting, learning, sharing, taking action and review of incidents.
These standards describe good practice and good systems of care for reporting, learning sharing, taking action and review of incidents as part of a patient safety culture. Their implementation will improve patient safety and the quality of pharmaceutical services.
TSA, the industry body for technology enabled care, has published Putting people first: commissioning for connected care, homes and communities.
This report looks at how the care technology sector supports health and social care commissioners to commission technology enabled care services that meet the growing and changing needs of the entire system. One of the themes included in the report is that commissioners need to ensure the commissioning approach focuses on outcomes and not inputs.
Dr Jen Perry, clinical lead for BMJ Quality, talks to Dr Emma Vaux | BMJ Quality Blog
Moving beyond the tickbox
Quality improvement (QI) has often been seen either as a tick-box exercise; something trainees have to do in order to pass their ARCP, or as an elite sport for carefully chosen clinical fellows. We need to move the thinking beyond this so that junior doctors are able to see its wide-ranging benefits, such as the ability to improve patient care, develop transferable skills (eg leadership), and build teams.
QI is an important method of “putting the fun back into medicine”, particularly in these difficult times where morale is low among junior doctors. It is a good way for junior doctors to get to know their teams outside of the ward round and the usual day to day business.
Doctors often lament the loss of the medical firm – well, this is one way of bringing teams back together and changing the conversation. QI enables links to be made between junior doctors and the rest of the organisation; it allows them to meet and engage with senior people such as the medical director and the director of patient safety. This helps to foster a culture where organisations value their junior doctors and the work that they do.
Read the full blog post here
Improvements include reduced incidents of inpatient violence, medication errors, waiting times for treatment in the community, and improved staff satisfaction and engagement.
East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) in the UK provides mental health and community services to a diverse and largely low-income population. Approximately 65,000 individuals come into contact with ELFT’s services each year at more than 100 community and inpatient sites.
In the past few years, ELFT has significantly reduced incidents of inpatient violence, medication errors, waiting times for treatment in the community, and improved staff satisfaction and engagement, among other improvements.
What made these achievements possible? Leaders and staff made a concerted effort to entrench a culture of continuous improvement in the organization, and they integrated quality improvement methodology and training into every level of work. To support their efforts, ELFT has been working closely with IHI since 2014 and became an IHI Strategic Partner in 2015.
Read the full report here
The Royal College of General Practitioners and the British Geriatrics Society have published Integrated care for older people with frailty: innovative approaches in practice.
This report focuses on how GPs and geriatricians are collaborating to design and lead innovative schemes to improve the provision of integrated care for older people with frailty. It highlights 13 case studies from across the UK including schemes to help older people remain active and independent, provide better services in the community and support patients in hospital.
A summary of reviews supporting the commissioning of interventions across a range of health behaviours for older adults. | Public Health England
This resource is intended for local authority and clinical commissioning groups to identify what types of interventions they should focus on to help the uptake and maintenance of healthy behaviours and promote cognitive health among older adults living in the community.
It is also intended for providers of lifestyle behaviour change programmes to support the development of evidence-informed prevention packages for older adults.
It is produced in a way that makes it accessible to public health managers and practitioners working in the public, private and third sector.
The Centre for Mental Health has published Meeting the need: what makes a ‘good’ joint strategic needs assessment (JSNA) for mental health or dementia?
This report explores how five local councils across England went about understanding the mental health needs of their communities, and taking action to meet them more effectively.
The report finds that JSNAs for mental health and dementia can help to direct investment, improve services and help local agencies work together more effectively. To have the biggest impact, they need a clear purpose, effective leadership and advocacy, and partnerships that continue after the JSNA is completed to ensure that they lead to action.
Report author Andy Bell highlights eight key success factors behind the creation of an effective and impactful needs assessment:
Public Health England has published Public perceptions and experiences of community-based end of life care initiatives: a qualitative research report.
This report is aimed at commissioners of end of life care services to support new ways of commissioning through using public health approaches to build compassionate communities. The key objectives of the research were to understand the awareness and knowledge of community end of life care across a number of key audiences; their perceptions of community end of life care; their experiences of end of life care and any community initiatives; and any improvements that could be made to community end of life care.
A new set of resources to help commissioners embed an outcomes based approach to their procurement of public services has been launched.
Following The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, commissioners are increasingly looking for positive social outcomes, which have a lasting impact and can be clearly demonstrated to stakeholders. At a time when budgets are tighter than they have ever been, maintaining public confidence and positive perceptions is a constant challenge for commissioners, which needs to be carefully managed if initiatives are to be delivered successfully and on time.
The resources from Social Enterprise Mark focus on an outcomes based approach to commissioning, and explain how asking for the Social Enterprise Mark/Gold Mark in commissioning criteria is an easy way of embedding social value within contract specifications and demonstrating consideration of the Social Value Act.
Further information:
Quality Improvement News 