Category: Health Care

Health and Social Care in England

Tackling the myths

Source: The King’s Fund

The health and care system is under intense pressure, with rising waiting times, persistent workforce shortages and patients struggling to access the care they need. As a result, patient and public satisfaction with services has dropped significantly, prompting debate and discussion about the future of health and care services. In the context of what can feel like a heated political and media discussion, the King’s Fund have taken five myths that sometimes feature in this debate and debunked them.

Read the article here.

Public Health

Current Awareness Updates

COVID-19 vaccines for autumn 2022: JCVI advice, 15 August 2022.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2022.
(Statement setting out the latest advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on COVID-19 vaccines for autumn 2022.)

NHS prescription charges in England.
House of Commons Library; 2022.
(The cost of an NHS prescription, who is entitled to free prescriptions and how to get help with prescription costs.)

Homeless hostel residents and staff struggle to access health and social care services.
The Mental Elf; 2022.
(In her debut blog, Ava Phillips summarises a paper that finds both people living in homeless hostels, and staff working there, feel marginalised and struggle to access the health and social care they need.)

As waiting lists grow for anxiety disorders, should we be turning to digital interventions?
The Mental Elf; 2022.
(Theo Kyriacou and Andie Ashdown explore a recent systematic review that brings together two decades of research, which suggests that digital health interventions for anxiety disorders may be a more effective alternative to inactive controls, such as waiting-list groups.)

No place for cheap alcohol: the potential value of minimum pricing for protecting lives.
World Health Organization (WHO); 2022.
(Pricing policies and taxation are among the most effective measures that policy-makers can use to address these harms, but they remain underutilized across the Region. This report reviews the status of implementation of minimum pricing globally, provides an overview of the most recent evidence behind the policy, addresses its main strengths and limitations and offers practical considerations for countries.)

Disabled people and health care services

Getting our voices heard

Disabled people face poorer experiences of – and worse access to – health and care services than people who aren’t disabled and these health inequalities have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, it’s vitally important to include disabled people in planning, designing and developing health and care services. This King’s Fund long read, with Disability Rights UK sets out what we found out about how disabled people are currently involved in health and care service design, and what good might look like.

Key messages include:

  • 60 per cent of those who died from Covid-19 in the first year of the pandemic were disabled. The health inequalities disabled people already faced were made worse by the pandemic and a decade of austerity. In this context, it’s vitally important to include disabled people in designing and planning health and care system responses.
  • Health and care services need to understand the broad diversity of disabled people’s identities and experiences, and adopt a social model approach to disability, understanding that people are disabled by barriers in society, rather than by impairments or health conditions.
  • Health and care professionals need to value disabled people’s expertise through properly recognising the value of lived experience and ensure disabled people’s voices are central to any plans right from the start.
  • Disabled health and care staff are potential partners in this work, with their perspectives of both using and delivering services.
  • Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) can strengthen their impact by working with other local DPOs and user-led organisations, understanding which parts of health and care systems they can best influence, and supporting health and care organisations to meaningfully engage with disabled people.
  • Both health and care organisations and DPOs need to improve their understanding of how people’s multiple identities shape their experiences, and embrace diversity of voices, opinions and challenges as an opportunity to think differently.
  • Ensuring disabled people’s voices are heard requires constant attention. While there are some examples of good practice, we heard many stories we heard where involvement wasn’t happening or felt tokenistic.

(The King’s Fund)

Podcast

Supporting refugee and migrant health care in England

We know people who are refugees, asylum seekers and migrants can arrive at their destination with complex physical and mental health needs. So how does the health and care system respond when they arrive in England? Take a listen to this King’s Fund podcast as they discuss refugee and migrant health care.

A plan for digital health and social care

Department of Health and Social Care

Source: The King’s Fund

This plan for digital health and social care sets out a vision for a digitally enabled health and social care system and how it can be achieved. It collates existing digital strategies, plans and guidance into one single action plan. It is aimed at health and social care leaders across the system, and industry partners to help them plan for the future. The document aims to outline clear priorities for digital transformation, and begins to set out the support that will be available to local systems to enable the changes that are needed.

Data saves lives

Reshaping health and social care with data

Source: The King’s Fund

This strategy sets out the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s vision for how data will be used to improve the health and care of the population in a safe, trusted and transparent way. It provides an overarching narrative and action plan to address the current cultural, behavioural and structural barriers in the system, with the ultimate goal of having a health and care system that is underpinned by high-quality and readily available data. The strategy also marks the next steps of the discussion about how we can best utilise data for the benefit of patients, service users, and the health and care system.

Resource of the Month

The King’s Fund

The King’s Fund is an independent charitable organisation working to improve health and care in England. Their vision is that the best possible health and care is available to all.

The King’s Fund provides a range of consultancy and advisory services which bring together a deep understanding of the health and care system, policy expertise and experience of supporting and developing leaders and organisations.

The library regularly shares reports, blog posts and other information from The King’s Fund on the library blog and on our Twitter page.

To get the latest news from The King’s Fund straight to your inbox subscribe to their email newsletters and health care information bulletins here.

Please feel free to download our resource of the month poster and share with your team or within your department.

Public Health

Current Awareness Updates

WHO European regional obesity report 2022

(Overweight and obesity affect almost 60 per cent of adults and nearly one in three children in the WHO European Region. Recent estimates suggest that overweight and obesity is the fourth most common risk factor for noncommunicable diseases in the Region, after high blood pressure, dietary risks and tobacco. This report examines the growing challenge and impact of obesity in the Region and focuses on managing obesity throughout the life course and tackling obesogenic environments. It also considers more recent challenges, including problematic digital marketing to children and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on obesity prevalence.)

Doctor’s orders: Why adherence is critical to improving health outcomes across the life course

(Nearly half of all adults and approximately 8% of children worldwide have a chronic condition. Yet, studies have shown that adherence to medication is poor. This is expensive for governments, requiring three extra medical visits per year. This article from the ILC suggests some key recommendations to support adherence.)

Thousands of people with diabetes set to benefit from real time information after updated NICE recommendations

(More than 250,000 people living with type 1 diabetes are set to be offered new technology to help them manage their condition and at the same time reduce the need for finger prick testing by up to 50%, following new advice from NICE.)

Link workers for population health: it’s time to get with the (social prescribing) programme

(Embedding a population health approach into health care at the local, regional and national level in England will require slow, incremental cultural shifts over the space of years, as suggested in their report; A vision for population health.)

Health and Prosperity

Report

Source: The King’s Fund Health Management and Policy Alert

This report warns that the UK’s deep health inequalities and ineffective policies mean people are living shorter lives, with more years spent in poor health, and face greater barriers to staying in and getting on at work. It calls for a new post-pandemic approach to the nation’s health to ensure people can enjoy living healthy lives longer and to improve the nation’s economy. A new cross-party Health and Prosperity Commission is being launched to explore how good health can be the foundation for a fair and prosperous economy.

Health and Social Care

Integrated care

In September 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England (NHSE) and the Local Government Association (LGA) published ‘ICP engagement document: integrated care system (ICS) implementation’. Following that publication, the DHSC, NHSE and LGA conducted an engagement exercise with those who have an interest in the formation of integrated care partnerships. This paper sets out the key findings from the engagement process. It also proposes next steps and outlines how DHSC, NHSE and the LGA intend to support and guide the development of these new partnership arrangements going forward.

Integrated care communications toolkit
This toolkit was developed to help communicate the changes taking place in the health and care system. Resources have been produced to help with explaining integrated systems to the public, elected members and officers of councils, and non-executive directors. The toolkit also includes a jargon buster and some FAQs