Knowledge @lert for Wednesday 7th September
Birmingham trusts to form single organisation to solve ‘unsustainable’ arrangements – NHE
University Hospitals Birmingham and Heart of England NHS Foundation Trusts will form a single trust after finding that their current structure is not delivering the best care for patients. If the decision is approved by both trusts’ boards, one trust will run Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, the Heartlands, Good Hope and…
Total Rewards Statements for 2016 – now live – NHS Employers
Total Reward Statements for 2016 are now live. Encourage your staff to access their statements.
New plans to expand the use of digital technology across the NHS – Department of Health
New plans to fast track digital excellence and improve the digital skills of the NHS workforce have been announced by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as part of plans to expand the use of digital technology across the NHS. Responding to a review of NHS technology conducted by renowned US clinician Bob Wachter, Jeremy Hunt will establish 12 new global exemplars to pioneer best practice and a new academy dedicated to training NHS staff in digital skills. As global exemplars, the 12 successful NHS organisations will receive up to £10 million and be expected to deliver pioneering approaches to digital services and help others in the NHS to learn from their experience. These trusts will be partnered with an international organisation of their choice, to take full advantage of their expertise.
Hunt names 12 ‘digital excellence’ trusts in line for funding – Health Service Journal
Jeremy Hunt is today due to name 12 trusts that will “deliver pioneering approaches to digital services” as he looks to “fast track” technology implementation in the NHS.
Wachter tells ministers: Discard ‘unrealistic’ 2020 IT target – Health Service Journal
Ministers have been urged by a government-commissioned review to ditch their “unrealistic” flagship target to achieve a paperless NHS by 2020 – and warned significantly more money will be required to achieve a digital health service.
Begin with culture; the rest will follow – King’s Fund Blog
What drives high performance in the NHS? Is it the promise of reward and recognition? Or is it the fear of impending punishment and blame? The answer is neither. It’s said that motivation is all about rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour. Simple. Except that humans are not so simple. And research shows that while this formulaic approach might work with rats and dogs, it doesn’t bring about lasting changes in attitudes, values or mindsets in humans. When incentives and threats are taken away or made less explicit, their influence diminishes and, over time, their effects can disappear completely. So this quick and dirty approach to employee motivation can only go so far in bringing about and sustaining the highest quality of patient care that we all want to see throughout the NHS.
Health inequalities and austerity
The BMA has published Health in all policies: health, austerity and welfare reform. This briefing aims to support this advocacy role of doctors by providing an overview of the evidence on the relationships between austerity, welfare reform and health, and how these link to the social determinants of health. It also considers what action is needed to protect and promote health during and after periods of financial crisis.
General practice in England
The Nuffield Trust has published Large-scale general practice in England: what can we learn from the literature? Collaborative ‘at-scale’ models are increasingly being heralded as the answer to the formidable challenges facing general practice. NHS England has signalled that large-scale general practice organisations should form a core component of their vision for new care models set out in the Five Year Forward View. But can these organisations really deliver what is expected of them? This report presents findings of an extensive literature review examining the evidence.
General Medical Services (GMS) contract
NHS Employers has published the Technical Requirements For 2016/17 GMS contract changes for commissioners and practices that hold a General Medical Services (GMS) contract, and practices that offer enhanced services and vaccination programmes nationally. The updated technical requirements document includes a section on the 2016/17 dementia data collection and a new Read Code for the learning disabilities enhanced service.
Safe Working Levels in General Practice – BMA
This report offers one evidence-based method for measuring safe GP working levels, arguing that a GP-led locality hub model could be commissioned in areas where demand outstrips capacity. It demonstrates this concept within the context of current service pressures and policy priorities through a number of examples where a hub model is already being trialed.
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