The Cloakroom and Saddleback Leather are selling quality. But the same is true if your point of difference is being the lowest cost option – you still have to pursue that end fanatically, doing more than anyone else is willing to do to cut costs.
The secret to being different is that you have to do the work that others are unwilling to do.
Report from the International Centre for Health Innovation that aims to identify:
Considers the philosophical motivation for personalization as a necessary and important building block for the personalization of health systems. The report then examines existing trends in personalization among consumers as well as lessons learned from other industry sectors and organizations that have achieved personalized models of service delivery. Using this data, it suggests a model for a personalized health system, illustrating the transition from the current system to a potential personalized end state. Finally, the report proposes 10 steps individuals, health providers, health system, and policy makers need to undertake in order to create and accelerate the personalization of health systems.
NHS England has set up an independent advisory group to improve governance around the care.data programme.
The group will be chaired by Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support and non-executive director of NHS England.
Background and methods
Innovation can improve patient care, but health-care managers’ use of evidence when considering change in hospitals is not well understood. We systematically looked at decisions about technologies available to help fight infections in hospitals.
We selected nine NHS hospitals across England of different size and research experience and, through191 interviews and 27 different technology examples, aimed to find out which decisions were made, who made these decisions and how the decisions were made. We were especially interested to learn about which forms of evidence were used by managers and looked at factors within and outside the hospital that may affect evidence use.
Findings and conclusion
We found that different professional groups of managers looked for, and used in decisions, different forms of evidence from each other, including research and own experience. For example, nurse managers looked at a wider range of evidence than doctors in management roles. Doctor managers and non-clinical managers were concerned with evidence that helped their own decision-making, whereas nurses were also concerned with providing evidence to others to aid decision-making. Many factors within and outside the hospital helped or hindered the use of evidence. For example, infection outbreaks sometimes highlighted the need for evidence but, at the same time, added a time pressure to make decisions quickly.
A lot of existing evidence held centrally in the NHS was not used in actual decision-making but, instead, evidence from suppliers and evidence gathered at the hospital level was used.
This study provides a learning opportunity for how policies intended for system-wide change can be implemented.
Department of Health –
Fair Deal is a non-statutory policy setting out how pension issues are to be dealt with when staff are compulsorily transferred from the public sector to independent sector providers of public services. This guidance gives information to contracting authorities, bidders and providers about the application of the new Fair Deal policy where the relevant public service pension scheme is the NHS Pension Scheme.
Care Quality Commission (CQC) –
The CQC commissioned The King’s Fund and Manchester Business School to explore whether the new approach to inspections provides a better analysis of the performance of an acute hospital. This is an interim report and the full report is due to be published in May 2014.
All companies claim that their strategies are customer driven. But when “customer” means any number of entities in a company’s value chain—consumers, suppliers, retailers, even internal units like R&D—managers tend to lose focus, and their firms become vulnerable to competitors who have clearly defined who they serve and how.
In this article, Robert Simons of the Harvard Business School presents a framework that can help companies develop strategies that are truly customer-centric
Delay in confronting crises is deadly. Corporate leaders must have processes for learning of important safety issues. Then they must seize control immediately and lead a systematic response. Crisis management is the ultimate stress test for the CEO and other top leaders of companies. The mantra for all leaders in crisis management must be: “It is our problem the moment we hear about it. We will be judged from that instant forward for everything we do—and don’t do.”
When we talk about “professionalism,” it’s easy to fall back into the “I know it when I see it” argument.
For Emily Heaphy, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Boston University, and her colleagues, this isn’t a cop-out. The notion of being seen as professional may be central to how we define success in the U.S. — and, consequently, how and why certain people aren’t able to attain it, depending on how well they adhere to social norms. In particular, Heaphy and the other researchers set out to study “one potential culturally bounded workplace norm — that of minimizing references to one’s life outside of work.”
The Report looks at the big societal issues that are shaping the business and well-being landscape; gender equality, fairness, resilience, psychological contracts and work-life balance.
Contributions have been made from world-leading businesses and experts, including:
Framework to help pharmacy professionals to improve their skills in carrying out consultations with patients and in delivering public health messages. It represents a national programme of change in pharmacy and will apply to more than 60,000 pharmacy professionals across England.
Additional Items
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.
Additional Item
This document has been produced by Monitor, NHS England and the Trust Development Authority to encourage debate about the about how the NHS can change its models of care to provide better services in the future.
The report includes transformative options that local health economies may wish to consider. You can read the report here.
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. They require 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.
Girish* is a client of mine who runs a 500-million-dollar business. He gets stellar reviews and is seen as a high potential successor to the CEO.
But he has a friend problem.
Several of his direct reports are close friends and he doesn’t hold them accountable in the same way he does his other direct reports. Often, they don’t do what he asks. And they aren’t delivering the results he expects. It’s hurting his business and his reputation.
When I speak with others on his team about the situation, they see it clearly and resent Girish’s friends. They don’t understand why Girish allows his friends to take advantage of him. And they feel demotivated and disengaged by Girish’s apparent unfairness.
But when I speak with Girish about it, he doesn’t see it at all. He’s filled with empathy for his friends’ struggles, which makes perfect sense since he cares deeply about them. But he’s blind to the damage they’re doing to him and the company.
There’s plenty of research supporting the idea that having friends at work makes you happier and more engaged. But here’s what the research doesn’t address: friendships at work are tricky, especially when you’re the boss.
Have you been disrupted recently? Do you sometimes feel like your organization is flailing, barely able to keep up with the pace of change? You are not alone. Industry disruption and accelerating change are no longer remarkable phenomena requiring a special response — they are part of the landscape. And organizations need more individual leaders who can help everyone navigate through the new, speeded-up and volatile world. Problem is, too many organizations approach this challenge with a one-size-fits-all idea of what change leaders should look like, and they train them accordingly.
In our research on change agents at the Phoenix Community of FCB Partners, we have found that there are three distinct challenges which require different kinds of change leaders: (1) transformational leaders, (2) innovation instigators, and (3) innovation managers.
Juan Ponce de León spent his life searching for the fountain of youth. I have spent mine searching for the ideal daily routine. But as years of color-coded paper calendars have given way to cloud-based scheduling apps, routine has continued to elude me; each day is a new day, as unpredictable as a ride on a rodeo bull and over seemingly as quickly.
Naturally, I was fascinated by the recent book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Author Mason Curry examines the schedules of 161 painters, writers, and composers, as well as philosophers, scientists, and other exceptional thinkers.
As I read, I became convinced that for these geniuses, a routine was more than a luxury — it was essential to their work. As Currey puts it, “A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.” And although the book itself is a delightful hodgepodge of trivia, not a how-to manual, I began to notice several common elements in the lives of the healthier geniuses (the ones who relied more on discipline than on, say, booze and Benzedrine) that allowed them to pursue the luxury of a productivity-enhancing routine:
Why do we not adopt the same level of focus on customer service within our health and social care services as they do in the business sector? The physical act of actually ‘paying’ for a service should be the only difference explains.
The experience of engaging the views and perspectives of people who use mental health services in the commissioning of those services has formed the basis of this article.
Look to the business sector to change the customer experience of healthcare – (HSJ Article request full text from Trust Library Services or call 01942 822508)
Reflection on Patient Safety which has been a key priority in NHS England’s first year. Outlines landmarks from this year and identifies the following priorities for next year.
Launch and roll-out of patient safety collaboratives.
Recruitment of patient safety improvement fellows.
Launch of patient safety data website.
Implementation of surgical never events taskforce recommendations including development of national standards.
National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) redevelopment.
Launch of medication, mental health, maternity and paediatrics safety thermometers.
More than 75 different types of organisation are involved in a confusing health and care complaints system which is discouraging people from raising concerns, according to work done by Healthwatch England.
Healthwatch criticises ‘incredibly complex’ complaints system – (HSJ Article request full text from Trust Library Services or call 01942 822508)
The 2014 Budget Book, published by the Treasury this afternoon, confirmed plans to raise employer contributions to the scheme from April 2015.
Budget 2014: Pensions change to cost NHS £125m – (HSJ Article request full text from Tust Library Services or call 01942 822508)
Sir David Nicholson’s departure from NHS England leaves space for a new kind of leader to step up to the challenges facing the service
Sir David Nicholson’s retirement at the end of the month will be seen by many as the end of an era.
Autocrats, move over. It’s time for persuaders to step up – (HSJ Article request full text from Trust Library Services or call 01942 822508)
Find out how to use a formal agreement to improve performance.
Use this tool to deliver focused, effective feedback.
Learn how to deal with team members who produce sloppy work
Mindfulness is gaining popularity amongst CEOs in major organisations. These organisations recognise the need to take time to reflect on what’s most important in order to create ways to overcome difficult challenges. This post considers key qualities of mindful leaders and reflects how it can be used to improve personal health and wellbeing.
Explains the basic concepts of storytelling through use of Freytag’s pyriamid and a basic overview of the neuroscience behind it’s effectiveness. The key example provided is a marketing promotion from Budweiser, but lessons can be used on how storytelling can be used to change attitudes and behaviours.
Dan Pallotta relates his experience as a CEO. Examples are given of CEOs who have adopted fear and intimidation tactics to run a company and an argument is made that there needs to be a balance between being kind and being nice to employees to get the best from them.
Personal explanations of the pressures exerted on CEOs and how it impacted on his behaviour are provided as he reflects on mistakes made. Key tips on how to manage employees to ‘make things happen’and develop the correct culture.
Reflection on a review of 90 undergraduate psychology students to determine how best to boost creativity.
The students were split into three groups and asked to complete a list of alternate uses for a sheet of paper. Each group was allocated precisely 4 minutes to achieve the list with one group working straight through, one group was interrupted at the half way point to complete another similar task and the final group were interrupted at the half way point to complete an unrelated task. The group which took a break to work on an unrelated task developed the longer list with more creative answers.
The post explores this research in context of commonly adopted methods for enhancing creativity and how to best construct your work day.
Gallup has found that one of the most important decisions companies make is simply whom they name manager. They also found that companies fail to make the correct decision 82% of the time. This impacts on employee engagement and cost businesses millions.
This post discusses the talents which are essential for great managers:
It concludes that statistically there is sufficient management talent exists in every company, the problem lies on how best to identify and make sure the right people are recruited.
Numerous papers have measured hospital efficiency, mainly using a technique known as data envelopment analysis (DEA). A shortcoming of this technique is that the number of outputs for each hospital generally outstrips the number of hospitals. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach, involving the use of explicit weights to combine diverse outputs into a single index, thereby avoiding the need for DEA.
Mounting pressures on England’s urgent and emergency care services have been well documented in local and national media over recent months. With headlines of “A&E in crisis” and “emergency services in meltdown” never too far from a front page, the topic has stimulated significant political and public debate. The task ahead for the NHS is to move beyond the headlines and handwringing and find practical whole-system solutions to address current pressures and avert future crises. Failure to find such solutions, and to act on them quickly, could have dire consequences for patients, and for the NHS as a whole.
The NHS Confederation’s Urgent and Emergency Care Forum brings together organisations from across the whole health and care system to debate, develop and share ideas for improving urgent and emergency care.
In Emergency care: an accident waiting to happen? the NHS Confederation noted concerns from members that only sticking plaster solutions were being offered.
This follow-up report acts as a roadmap to the fundamental changes required to create a sustainable and high-quality urgent and emergency care system that can meet the needs of patients now and in the future.
Since the launch of the Frontline First campaign in July 2010, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has monitored the damaging impact of £20 billion of NHS efficiency savings in England and subsequent cuts to frontline jobs and services.
At the time, the Government claimed that it would be possible to make these efficiency savings without cutting frontline staff.
However, the RCN found that NHS trusts across the country were losing thousands of nursing posts, with proposals to cut many tens of thousands more.
Based on freedom of information data obtained from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), this special report, More than just a number, confirms that senior nursing roles have borne the brunt of workforce cuts, leading to a dangerous loss of experience and skills that are essential to ensuring patient safety and driving up care standards.
This report explores the association between income and health throughout the life course and within families.
Improving the income of the poorest members of society is often proposed as a way of improving their health, and hence reducing health inequalities.
However, for this policy to be effective, it is important to understand how money influences health. Effective policy responses must take all the factors that link income and health into account.
The report identifies key theories that explain how money influences health, including:
• materialist arguments: for example, money buys health-promoting goodsand the ability to engage in a social life in ways that enable people to be healthy;
• psychosocial mechanisms: for example, the stress of not having enough money may affect health;
• behavioural factors: people living in disadvantaged circumstances may be more likely to have unhealthy behaviours;
• being in poor health may affect education and employment opportunities in ways that affect subsequent health.
NHS providers are wasting energy pursuing foundation trust status when the model is “not going to work in the future”, Sir David Nicholson has said.
CCGs and councils set to pool more than £5bn in 2015-16 – (HSJ Article request full text from Trust Library Services or call 01942 822508)
Describes the development of the Determinants of Implementation Behavior Questionnaire (DIBQ) and investigates the reliability and validity of this Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF)-based questionnaire. The study developed a valid and reliable questionnaire that can be used to assess potential determinants of healthcare professional implementation behavior following the theoretical domains of the TDF. The DIBQ can be used by researchers and practitioners who are interested in identifying determinants of implementation behaviors in order to be able to develop effective strategies to improve healthcare professionals’ implementation behaviors. Furthermore, the findings provide a novel validation of the TDF and indicate that the domain ‘Environmental context and resources’ might be divided into several environment-related domains.
Implementation Science 2014, 9:33 doi:10.1186/1748-5908-9-33
Uses a collaborative approach for the development and evaluation of a toolbox for development, implementation, revision, and evaluation of guidelines. This approach yielded a potentially powerful toolbox for improving the quality and implementation of Dutch clinical guidelines. Collaboration between guideline organizations within this project led to stronger linkages, which is useful for enhancing coordination of guideline development and implementation and preventing duplication of efforts. Use of the toolbox could improve quality standards in the Netherlands, and might facilitate the development of high-quality guidelines in other countries as well.
Implementation Science 2014, 9:34 doi:10.1186/1748-5908-9-34
NHS England bite-size guides, to support patient and public participation in the NHS. Identifies 6 practical stems to ensure participation in commissioning.
NHS England bite-size guides, to support Governance for participation. Identifies 9 practical stems to ensure good governance in participation.
NHS England bite-size guides, to support Budgeting for participation. Identifies 9 practical stems to ensure good budgeting in participation.
NHS England bite-size guides, to support Planning for participation. Identifies 6 practical stems to ensure good planning for participation.
Quality improvement collaboratives (QICs) continue to be widely used, yet evidence for their effectiveness is equivocal. We sought to explain what happened in Stroke 90:10, a QIC designed to improve stroke care in 24 hospitals in the North West of England. This study drew in part on the literature on collective action and inter-organizational collaboration. Finds a mixed picture of collaboration, competition and free-riding. Suggests time and resources need to be appropriate and management is required to reduce poor behaviours within the collaborative. Costs and benefits of collaboration need to be weighed up by organisations.
Implementation Science 2014, 9:32 doi:10.1186/1748-5908-9-32
Identifies that there is a growing body of evidence that an intervention that was successful in one location doesn’t deliver the same results elsewhere. Why is this? Alongside the importance of what you do
(intervention), and how you do it (implementation), the environment or context that you do it in also matters. It is the interaction between these three elements that makes for success.
According to routine data, the overall Adverse Drug Events (ADE) prevalence rates for England, Germany, and the USA are
different. However, the differences are narrower than those determined from the rates of ADEs or adverse drug
reactions inferred from prospective or retrospective pharmacoepidemiological studies. Since the ADEs in the
countries examined in this study share several characteristics, the use of routine data for transnational research on
ADEs is feasible
Briefing paper that describes current UK telehealth and telecare initiatives and the role they may play in delivering future care. It is written to brief politicians to inform them that as the UK’s elderly population is growing and with it the number of people with long-term health problems. This is putting pressure on the health and social care systems. Increased use of technology such as telehealth and telecare may help to improve quality of care and reduce costs.
Councils and NHS commissioners are set to share pooled budgets of more than £5bn in 2015-16 under the better care fund, HSJ has learned.
They have agreed to pool more than a third over and above the £3.8bn they are required to do under the policy, according to early indications in their plans.
CCGs and councils set to pool more than £5bn in 2015-16 – (HSJ Article request full text from Trust Library Services or call 01942 822508)
A mixed methods study involving over 254 interviews and collection of quantitative data investigating the process of service redesign in three acute trusts. Aims to investigate change in depth and detail. Findings include:
Suggests the most effective route to change is to focus on teams focussing on patient/clinical concerns.