New NHS app will make it quicker and easier to access health services

The free app will be available to everyone in England in December 2018

The new NHS app will give patients safe and secure access to their GP record. Patients will be able to use it to:

• make GP appointments
• order repeat prescriptions
• manage long-term conditions
• access 111 online for urgent medical queries

It means patients will be able to secure a GP appointment with the click of a button, rather than join a queue of callers attempting to ring the local surgery at the same time each morning.

Patients will also be able to use the app to state their preferences relating to:

• data-sharing
• organ donation
• end-of-life care

The app has been developed by NHS Digital and NHS England. It will be available through the App Store or Google Play and once downloaded users can simply sign up for an NHS account.

Full story here

Achieving the Provision of Integrated Care

This report traces the development and impact of integrated care to date, highlights some examples of successful practice and draws out the key lessons for later-adopters |  National Association of Primary Care

This report suggests that a number of of factors – ageing populations, an increased prevalence of multiple chronic disease and rising expectations of what health care and technology can offer –  combined with limited human and financial resources, have placed health  systems under intolerable and unsustainable strain.

Image source: http://napc.co.uk

Integrated Care Systems, where health providers collaborate with other community  stakeholders to prevent ill health, provide more comprehensive care closer to home, keep people out of hospital and reduce costs, is seen as the antidote to these problems. This approach is now spreading around the world, taking many different forms from country to country.

This report of a two-day symposium attended by health experts from the UK, USA and Ireland, traces the development and impact of integrated care to date, highlights some examples of successful practice and draws out the key lessons for later-adopters.

Full report:

Achieving the Provision of Integrated Care:  Exploring the development and successful
implementation internationally of new models of integrated care

 

How fixing the NHS’s broken pay system can deliver better outcomes for patients

An NHS bonus: how fixing the NHS’s broken pay system can deliver better outcomes for patients | Centre for Policy Studies

Image source: http://www.cps.org.uk

This report argues that by introducing greater flexibility into the system, and linking pay more closely with performance and objectives, both NHS productivity and patient outcomes could be improved. It urges the Government, and NHS managers, to make reform of the pay system an urgent priority as part of the new funding settlement.

Full report available here

Cyber security boost to the NHS as NHS Digital joins forces with IBM

NHS Digital has entered into a three-year strategic partnership with IBM to provide a range of new and improved services to health and care organisations. These services will enhance data security and cyber security response and provide additional defence against increasingly complex, evolving threats.

The additional services will expand NHS Digital’s existing Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC)3 and enhance NHS Digital’s current capability to monitor, detect and respond to a variety of security risks and threats across the NHS, and offer expert advice and guidance

The CSOC expands on the existing cyber security services provided by NHS Digital and will include:

• Enhanced services, such as vulnerability scanning and malware analysis, allowing NHS Digital to offer tailored and specialist advice to individual NHS organisations
• Enhancement of NHS Digitals current monitoring capability enabling the analyses of data from multiple sources to detect threats across NHS Digital’s national systems and services
• Access to IBM’s X-Force repository of threat intelligence to provide insight, guidance, and advice so health and care organisations can take appropriate action to prepare for, or mitigate against, identified risks and threats.
• Security monitoring pilots across selected NHS organisations, to test a range of security technologies and identify appropriate solutions that could be rolled out across the NHS estate
• An innovation service which will allow NHS Digital to quickly access new tools technologies and expertise to address new threats as they emerge and to allow it to adapt services to meet the changing needs of the health and care sector.

Full story at NHS Digital

The health and social care interface

The health and social care interface | National Audit Office

There is widespread consensus among health and social care professionals, the NHS and policy-makers in government that the changing needs of the population require changes to the way health and social care services are organised and delivered.

This ‘think piece’ highlights the barriers that prevent health and social care services working together effectively, examples of joint working in a ‘whole system’ sense and the move towards services centred on the needs of the individual. The report aims to inform the ongoing debate about the future of health and social care in England. It anticipates the upcoming green paper on the future funding of adult social care, and the planned 2019 Spending Review, which will set out the funding needs of both local government and the NHS.

The report presents and discusses 16 challenges to improved joint working. It also highlights some of the work being carried out nationally and locally to overcome these challenges and the progress that has been made.

Report – The health and social care interface

Press release – The health and social care interface