Evaluating the evidence on employee engagement and its potential benefits to NHS staff: a narrative synthesis of the literature, Health Services and Delivery Research, Vol:3, Iss:26. Authors: Bailey C, Madden A, Alfes K, Fletcher L, Robinson D, Holmes J, Buzzeo J, Currie G.
Recent studies have suggested engagement is linked with beneficial outcomes for individuals and organisations. Despite growing demand for resources and advice on engagement within the NHS, there has been no systematic evaluation of how engagement strategies can be developed and operationalised within the NHS.

Third of councils cut Healthwatch budgets – Health Service Journal
Healthwatch England has demanded explanations from councils that have imposed deep funding cuts on its local groups this year.

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Health informatics must be made accountable – Health Service Journal
It’s time for health informatics to be treated as a profession accountable to an appropriate regulatory body.

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Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes: Policies for Better Health and Quality of Care – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
This report examines how countries perform in their ability to prevent, manage and treat cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. The last 50 years have witnessed remarkable improvements in CVD outcomes. Since 1960, overall CVD mortality rates have fallen by over 60%, but these improvements are not evenly spread across OECD countries, and the rising prevalence of diabetes and obesity are threatening to offset gains. It examines how OECD countries deliver the programmes and services related to CVD and diabetes. It considers how countries have used available health care resources to reduce the overall burden of CVD and diabetes, and it focuses on the variation in OECD health systems’ ability to convert health care inputs (such as expenditure) into health gains.

Putting digital to work for patients – Tim Kelsey – NHS England
NHS England’s National Director for Patients and Information looks at how unleashing the power of technology and data can improve patient care.

Attributing the costs of health and social care research and development (AcoRD) – Department of Health
Updated guidance providing a framework for the NHS and its partners to identify, recover and attribute the costs of health and social care R&D (ACoRD), in a transparent, and consistent manner. It clarifies the distinction between the 3 costs of research:

• research costs
• NHS support costs
• treatment costs

Additional Items

• AcoRD annex A: list of common research activities attributed to the research costs, NHS treatment costs and NHS support costs
• AcoRD annex B: frequently asked questions

Struggling FT threatened with ‘leadership change’ – Health Service Journal
Monitor has threatened a troubled foundation trust with leadership change if it fails to produce robust plans to recover its finances.  The regulator has also appointed a financial improvement director to oversee progress at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, which has forecast a deficit of £47m for this year.

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Transforming general practice
The Nuffield Trust has published Transforming general practice: what are the levers for change? This briefingexamines the approaches and levers for change that can be utilised by policy-makers and regulators to promote change in general practice. It argues that financial rewards, which are currently used to incentivise small scale changes by the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), are at risk of being overused and are not the best way to encourage widespread reform in general practice.

Adult Social Services budget survey
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) has published their latest ADASS Budget Survey 2015 report, which presents the findings from their annual budget survey of their members. The report seeks to provide an in-depth analysis into how adult social care is managing its budget within the context of increased demand and reduced resources. Of the 151 councils approached, 147 responded.  The key findings of the report can be split into three categories: current situation, future budgetary plans and the impact of those future plans on delivery.

Child health profiles
Public Health England has published the 2015 Child Health Profiles. The profiles draw together information to present a picture of child health and wellbeing in each local area in a user-friendly format. They are a valuable tool for local government and health services in helping them to understand their communities’ needs, so that they can work to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people and reduce health inequalities.

Informed
The latest issue of Informed (16 June) has been published by NHS England. It includes the following items:

• Two new vanguard opportunities
• Ensuring the NHS is safely staffed
• Learning Disability Week
• Leading Transformational Change programme open for application
• Cervical Screening Awareness Week
• Diabetes Week 2015
• Simon Stevens speaking at Local Government Authority Annual Conference
• Health and Care Innovation Expo 2015

Statistics

• Ambulance Services, England – 2014-15
• NHS Continuing Healthcare Activity – England– Quarter 4, 2014-15
• Quarterly Epidemiological Commentary: Mandatory MRSA, MSSA and E. coli bacteraemia, and C. difficile infection data (up to January – March 2015)