Knowledge @lert for Thursday 16th July

July 16, 2015 CCG Daily News

Monitor/TDA merged body to be called NHS Improvement – Health Service Journal 
The combined provider regulator bringing together Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority will be called NHS Improvement, Jeremy Hunt announced this morning. The body will be chaired by Ed Smith and Lord Ara Darzi will become a non-executive director.

Quarterly monitoring report: issue 16 – The King’s Fund
According to this report, more than 60 per cent of NHS trust finance directors think controls on agency spending announced in June will not significantly reduce the amount spent on agency staff. The regular survey carried out for the report also found that three-quarters of trusts intend to recruit more permanent nurses in the next six months, suggesting that the NHS is continuing to prioritise quality of patient care despite rising financial pressures.

Contract reform for consultants and doctors & dentists in training – supporting healthcare services seven days a week – Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB)
This report provides DDRB’s recommendations and observations on the proposals put forward by the parties for reforming contracts for both doctors and dentists in training and consultants. The remit for doctors and dentists in training covered England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: for consultants, the remit covered just England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Health Secretary sets out ambition for a 21st century NHS
The Health Secretary has set out the government’s vision for a patient-led, transparent and safer NHS.  Mr Hunt has set out the direction of reform for the future NHS which includes a profound culture change which puts power into the hands of patients, enabling them to make informed choices about the services they use.  Mr Hunt also calls for a step change in transparency. He said that by next March, England will become the first country in the world to publish avoidable deaths by hospital trusts as well as ratings on the overall quality of care provided to different patient groups in every local area.

Patients to be told CQC ratings to encourage ‘informed’ hospital choice – Health Service Journal
Patients will be told the Care Quality Commission rating and waiting times for their local hospitals when making appointments through a new electronic booking system to encourage ‘truly informed’ patient choice, the health secretary has said.

Local payment examples – multilateral gain/loss sharing: a financial mechanism to support collaborative service reform – Monitor
This document is intended for all organisations involved in commissioning or delivering new care models. It will be of particular interest to finance, contracting and commissioning staff seeking detailed guidance on developing new financial mechanisms to support service reform.

Learning Not Blaming: The Government Response To The Freedom To Speak Up Consultation, The Public Administration Select Committee Report ‘Investigating Clinical Incidents In The NHS’, And The Morecambe Bay Investigation – Department of Health
This report sets out the government’s position on the Morecambe Bay Investigation, Freedom to Speak Up and the Public Administration Select Committee report on clinical incidents. The three reports cover distinct areas, and the government response addresses the points and recommendations raised in each report. There are some themes common to each report, including the importance of openness, honesty and candour; listening to patients, families and staff; finding and facing the truth; learning from errors and failures in care; and people and professionalism.

Better leadership for tomorrow: NHS leadership review – Department of Health
The Secretary of State for Health asked Lord Rose to conduct a review into leadership in the NHS. The review asked what might be done to attract and develop talent from inside and outside the health sector into leading positions in the NHS. It also asked how strong leadership in hospital trusts might help transform the way things get done and how best to equip clinical commissioning groups to deliver the Five Year Forward View. It makes 19 recommendations covering training, performance management, bureaucracy and management support.

Improving hepatitis C treatment
Public Health England’s has published its latest briefing in its ‘Turning evidence into practice’ series, Improving access to, and completion of, hepatitis C treatment.  It has practical advice for commissioners and services on improving access to, and completion of, hepatitis C treatment. It covers testing for hepatitis C and then acting on a positive result to support someone in getting effective treatment.

Yellow Card Scheme app
A Yellow Card smartphone app has been launched for people to report problems with medicines. Fifty years on from its inception this new app supplements an existing one-stop website and allows patients, carers and healthcare professionals to report side effects directly to the Yellow Card Scheme to help MHRA ensure they are acceptably safe for patients.

How is the NHS performing?
The King’s Fund has published its latest quarterly monitoring report which examines the views of finance directors on the productivity challenge they face, as well as some key NHS performance data to see how the NHS is performing.

Transparency metrics: comparing the NHS to other countries
The Department of Health has published How the NHS in England compares to other countries in publishing selected transparency metrics.  This is an Internal analysis looking into how the NHS in England compares to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States in publishing information on quality of care, patient experience and outcomes.  This list of 10 metrics was chosen by DH to represent the full range of health service sectors and to draw out measures that reflect overall levels of performance.

Friends and Family Test:  updated guidance
Updated guidance has been published to help make the Friends and Family Test more inclusive. This new guidance covers services across the NHS that are provided to children and young people  with special provisions for looked after children  as well as patients with learning disabilities, dementia, language and literacy issues or patients who are deaf or deafblind.

Poor care for older hospital patients
Researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) have published Older people’s experiences of dignity and nutrition during hospital stays: Secondary data analysis using the Adult Inpatient Survey. This report finds older hospital patients in England face a “widespread and systematic” pattern of inadequate care.  An estimated one million people in later life are affected by poor or inconsistent standards of dignity or help with eating in hospitals. The report comes from data in the Adult Inpatient Survey for 2012-13 to provide a detailed picture of older people’s reported experiences during hospital stays.

Recruitment and retention of nursing staff
The Good Governance Institute has published The nursing journey: recruitment and retention. This report explores the issues of recruitment and retention of nurses.  It finds that, despite some positive initiatives, workforce challenges persist across the sector, including poor workforce morale leading to high attrition rates, an aging workforce, and an over-reliance on agency nurses and foreign recruitment. It sets out a number of recommendations which are intended to address the issues raised in the report.

Accountability in an age of integrated care
The Nuffield Trust has published Reconsidering accountability in an age of integrated care. This latest report in its viewpoint series examines the future of governance and accountability in the NHS and social care amid the rise of new provider models, a growing focus on integration and cuts in council funding.

GP Prescribing in 2014
The House of Commons library has published its latest briefing paper GP Prescribing in 2014: constituency statistics.  Prescription rates for medicines and treatments provide one useful measure of the burden of illness and disease across the country. This paper provides statistics on prescriptions by GP practices in England as a whole and local variation for individual drugs and treatments.

Investing in public health
The World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe has published The case for investing in public health. The report describes the economic and health benefits to individuals and governments of a public health approach; sets out the costs of failing to address current public health challenges; summarizes evidence for the cost–effectiveness of public health and prevention approaches; summarizes the recommendations from WHO’s study of the costs of scaling up action to prevent and reduce the impact of non-communicable diseases; and summarizes which preventive interventions show evidence for early

NHS Financial Future
Healthcare Financial Management Association has published the latest in a regular series of briefings reporting the results from a survey of NHS finance directors. This edition of NHS financial temperature check draws on the views of more than 200 people from both providers and commissioners across the United Kingdom.  The results highlight growing concerns about the current financial environment and pessimism on the ability of the service to make the savings needed.

NHS Improving Quality Business Plan 2015/16
NHS Improving Quality has published it Business plan for 2015/16 setting out the organisations priorities for the year ahead. The report highlights the continuing partnership with NHS England, in the context of the review of the changing improvement landscape and the strategic direction set out in the Five Year Forward View. The overarching purpose remains, to help the health and care system to continually improve in order to meet the needs of the people it serves now and in the future.

The Care Act
The County Councils Network has published County Care Markets: Market Sustainability and the Care Act. This report reveals the reality facing county care markets prior to part 2 of the Care Act ‘going live’. It provides evidence that the social care system is already unsustainably reliant on cross-subsidisation by those people that fund their own care, but also that the Care Act could lead to a significant alteration in the funding model currently keeping many local care markets afloat.

Minimising transmission risk of CJD and vCJD in healthcare settings
The Department of Health has updated some its guidance originally published in November 2012 in relation to minimising transmission risk of CJD and vCJD in healthcare settings. The updated guidance includes the following:

  • Annex A1 – Outline Protocol for Management of Instruments and Tissues from Brain Biopsy Procedures on Patients with Progressive Neurological Disorders.
  • Annex F – Endoscopy

Human Tissue Authority consultation
The Department of Health has launched an open consultation into the role and performance of the Human Tissue Authority. The department reviews all its arm’s length bodies once every 3 years.  This triennial review looks at the Human Tissue Authority form, functions, governance and performance. The consultation closes at 31 August 2015.

Newborn blood spot screening updated templates published
Public Health England has published updated templates used to collect data for child health records departments and laboratories to collect and submit newborn blood spot screening data. This data informs the programme, indicates progress on its quality standards and shows areas for improvement.

Bulletins

Statistics

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