News Bulletin for Friday 21st March
Review of CQC’s new approach to inspecting hospitals
The Care Quality Commission has published the findings from an independent review of their new approach to inspecting hospitals. The CQC commissioned the Kings Fund and Manchester Business School to carry out this evaluation and will use this information to improve the way it inspects. The full report will be published in May. The paper makes a number of recommendations, including building the skills, capacity and contribution of team members such as inspectors and data analysts. It also recommends making the process of rating hospitals and core service areas more transparent.
Integrating Behavioral Health Across The Continuum Of Care
Guide from Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence (HPOE) that explains the value of integrating physical and behavioural health services and the importance of measuring integration efforts. It offers several frameworks and models to use for behavioural health integration and provides a list of strategic questions for hospital and care system leaders to begin integrating behavioural health or to enhance current efforts.
Research and analysis: Unit costs of health and social care
This report brings together information about the costs of health and social care staff and services in as transparent and consistent a way as possible. The report is based in economic theory (long run marginal opportunity cost) and includes detailed references, relevant short articles and commentaries.
Making sense of evidence in management decisions: the role of research-based knowledge on innovation adoption and implementation in health care
Although innovation can improve patient care, implementing new ideas is often challenging. Previous research found that professional attitudes, shaped in part by health policies and organisational cultures, contribute to differing perceptions of innovation ‘evidence’. However, we still know little about how evidence is empirically accessed and used by organisational decision-makers when innovations are introduced. This study provides a learning opportunity for how policies intended for system-wide change can be implemented.
Good Practice: Audit Outcomes Analysis – Information Commissioner’s Office
Snapshot view of organisations providing secondary health care and how they are complying with the Data Protection Act. The report summarises key findings from 19 audits carried out primarily with NHS Trusts by the ICO. The audits looked at how personal data is handled by the organisation, and fit alongside NHS information governance guidelines.
CQC plans 50pc rise in DH funding for overhauled inspections
The Care Quality Commission is planning for a 50 per cent increase in the money it receives from the Department of Health to fund its overhauled inspection regime.The regulator will employ nearly 700 new staff, an increase of nearly 30 per cent, under its draft business plan for 2014-15 which was submitted to the regulator’s board yesterday.
CCG red tape bonfire?
As part of the Government’s drive to reduce red tape, the Department of Health (DH) is proposing to use a legislative reform order to amend the NHS Act 2006. The order will enable:
- two or more CCGs to form a joint committee when carrying out their functions; and
- CCGs and NHS England to jointly exercise CCG functions.
The draft order has been laid in Parliament and is awaiting approval, and can be found here
Patient safety alert: improving incident reporting and learning
NHS England and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency have jointly issued two patient safety alerts to help healthcare providers increase incident reporting for medication errors and medical devices. The alerts instruct providers to take specific steps that will improve data report quality; and will see the establishment of national networks to maximise learning and provide guidance on minimising harm relating to these two incident types.
Values mapping tool
This tool aims to help organisations to map their values to the those in the NHS Constitution. It has been developed as part of Health Education England’s Values Based Recruitment programme which will ensure that selection into all new NHS funded training posts incorporates testing of values based recruitment by March 2015.
Women to benefit from £10 million for better maternity environments
Expectant mothers will be seen in more homely environments and benefit from new equipment, maternity minister, Dr Dan Poulter said at Kingston Hospital . £10 million is being awarded to trusts as part of the government’s drive to improve maternity care for women and babies. The fund has been allocated to 63 Trusts across the country and will help to improve the settings where women receive care before, during and after birth. The funding will also give women more choice of place of birth.
GP locum chambers: a modern solution for tomorrows GP workforce
This report follows a review of the sustainability of GP leadership for commissioning which identified that GPs are under pressure due to increasing complexity of patient demand, changes in the GP workforce to more part-time and sessional roles, new commissioning responsibilities, poor access to GP locums and difficulties in recruitment with many GPs nearing retirement. This paper outlines how the model of GP locum chambers can help address these challenges, options for development and how to get started.
The Good Governance Institute Blog
The Good Governance Institute has announced the launch of the blog section of its newly updated website. The blog will provide reflections from GGI Associates on key themes emanating from current projects, along with the examination of pertinent healthcare issues. It will also host commentary and analysis from a range of healthcare professionals on important topics for health and social care in the UK, and internationally. The blog aims to foster discussion and engagement around current governance and healthcare issues.