Falls prevention: cost-effective commissioning

Guidance from Public Health England (PHE) for commissioners and communities to provide cost effective falls prevention activities.  Local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) can use results from the tool to protect and improve the health of their local populations when making commissioning decisions.

The flexible Excel sheet allows for results to be tailored to the local situation based on the knowledge of the user. All interventions are aimed at those aged 65 and over. It can be accessed here 

The accompanying report, A Return on Investment Tool for the Assessment of Falls Prevention Programmes for Older People Living in the Community,  which explains how the tool was constructed and outlines the main findings, can be read here 

PHE have also produced a structured literature review which identifies which interventions are cost-effective in preventing falls in older people living in the community can be downloaded from their website.

More collaboration between NHS Improvement and NHS England announced as part of integration

NHS England  | March 2018  |NHS England and NHS Improvement: working closer together

NHS England has announced plans for greater collaboration between NHS England and NHS Improvement, outlining plans for greater integration at national level as well as in local health systems. While some of their functions are distinctive, such as each of their legal and statutory responsibilities and accountabilities, where possible integration will be combine forces for those areas where they can better work as one.

From September 2018 they propose

• increased integration and alignment of national programmes and activities – one team where possible
• integration of NHS England and NHS Improvement regional teams, to be led in each case by one regional director working for both organisations, and a move to seven regional teams to underpin this new approach.

 

They outline a number  benefits of a more joined up approachm, these are described below:

• work much more effectively with commissioners and providers in local health systems to break down traditional boundaries between different parts of the NHS and between health and social care
• speak with one voice, setting clear, consistent expectations for providers, commissioners and local health systems
• use NHS England and NHS Improvement’s collective resources more effectively and efficiently to support local health systems and the patients they serve remove unnecessary duplication and improve the impact from our work, delivering more for the NHS together than we do by working separately.

Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England and Ian Dalton, Chief Executive of NHS Improvement said: “The public see the National Health Service as a single organisation so, as we work to improve care for patients, it is right that the national leadership of the NHS work more closely. Together we are more than the sum of our parts.” (NHS England)

More details can be found at NHS England

 

Related:

NHS Confederation  Closer working between NHS England and NHS Improvement “a positive step”, says NHS Confederation
OnMedica NHS announces top-tier collaboration and integration

National standards for public involvement in research

New national standards launched across the UK to improve public involvement in research | National Institute for Health Research

A set of national standards designed to improve the quality and consistency of public involvement in research has been launched at the 2018 Patients First conference and at the Involving People Network Annual Meeting 2018.

The standards aim to provide people with clear, concise benchmarks for effective public involvement alongside indicators against which improvement can be monitored. They are intended to encourage approaches and behaviours that will support this.

They have been developed through a UK-wide partnership over the last 18 months building on previous work in this area. The partnership brings together members of the public with representatives from the National Institute for Health Research (England), the Chief Scientist Office (Scotland), Health and Care Research Wales and the Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland), working with an independent expert.

Full details at National Institute for Health Research

Patient data saves lives: The bigger picture

Better use of data is essential to speed up diagnosis, research new treatments, plan better NHS services and monitor the safety of drugs. However, most patients feel they don’t know how their data are used in the NHS.

Understanding Patient Data have developed a series of animations to address this gap in knowledge.

Watch the video, Patient data saves lives: The bigger picture below:

Other titles in this series include:

• Patient data saves lives: Dementia (watch)
• Patient data saves lives: Cancer (watch)
• Patient data saves lives: Asthma (watch)
• Patient data saves lives: Heart attack (watch)
• Patient data saves lives: Diabetes (watch)

For further information about how and why patient data is used, visit the UPD website: www.patientdata.org.uk

Improved asthma and dementia care from community pharmacists under new quality scheme

Most community pharmacies in England are now providing improved asthma and dementia care |  NHS England 

Thousands of community pharmacists took up incentives to offer new patient services, such as providing asthma checks and undertaking training to become more dementia aware, as part of a programme to improve care.

The uptake figures from NHS England show that 97 per cent (11,410) of community pharmacies are now signed up to the Quality Payments Scheme, which provides an incentive to deliver new clinical services in a bid to encourage more people to use their local pharmacist.

An assessment of the new scheme shows that since April 2017, 70,000 pharmacy staff have become ‘Dementia Friends’ in order to offer greater awareness regarding the needs of people with dementia. ​

NHS England issued guidance in December 2016 on how community pharmacies could qualify for the scheme, which ran between December 2016 and March 2018, and is currently considering how best to implement the successes of this scheme over the long-term.

Full story at NHS England