Category: Secondary Care

Open public services: experiences from the voluntary sector

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date November 20, 2012

By The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (2012)

This report published by NCVO and 14 partner organisations, highlights examples of innovation in practice where the voluntary sector has worked in new ways with statutory authorities to develop specialist services. It argues that there needs to be greater openness and flexibility in commissioning services to capitalise on the contribution from charities. It also highlights new opportunities emerging from social investment and open data which could ease contract risks and make services more accountable to their users if adopted. It is aimed at those involved in improving services: government; local authorities; voluntary organisations; and social investors.

Click here to view this report

Library Secondary Care Value

Patient-level costing: can it yield efficiency savings?

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date October 8, 2012

By The Nuffield Trust (September 2012)

This report examines how, in an era of financial challenge, NHS trusts can make better use of cost information at the patient level, as the first step towards greater efficiency. The challenge faced by the NHS of achieving major efficiency savings highlights the desirability of improving the availability and scrutiny of data on the costs and outcomes of health care. Patient-level costing systems (or ‘PLICS’) were introduced in the NHS in the mid-2000s. This report highlights the key findings of a full report looking at the use of these computerised information systems in hospitals that were set up to track and enable analysis of the costs of care incurred by individual patients. The report examines whether the implementation of information systems for patient-level costing might lead to greater efficiencies.

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Community General Practice Integrated Care Library Local Government Secondary Care

Guide to new health and care system

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date October 3, 2012

By Department of Health (2012)

This page provides a brief introduction to the statutory bodies making up the new health and care system, explaining how they will work together in the interests of patients and communities.

Click here to view this page

Library Secondary Care

Hospitals on the edge? The time for action

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date September 20, 2012

By The Royal College of Physicians (September 2012)

This report argues that demand on clinical services is increasing to the point where acute care cannot keep pace in its current form. It highlights that there are a third fewer general and acute beds now than there were 25 years ago, yet the last decade alone has seen a 37% increase in emergency admissions. It makes recommendations for a move towards more patient-centred care and a reorganisation and redesign of services.

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CCGs General Practice Library Secondary Care Third Sector

Impact assessment: the new NHS provider licence

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date September 17, 2012

By Monitor ( September 2012)

This independent report analyses the costs and benefits of each of the proposed licence conditions which set out various obligations on providers of NHS services. The conditions fall into six broad groups: general, pricing, choice and competition, integrated care, continuity of services, and NHS foundation trusts.

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Community Public Mental Health Secondary Care

Professional standards for hospital pharmacy services: optimising patient outcomes from medicine

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date August 10, 2012

By The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (2012)

These standards aim to underpin patient experience and the safe, effective management of medicines within and across organisations. They aim to enable patients to experience a consistent quality of service within and across healthcare providers, that helps protect them from incidents of avoidable harm and enables them to get the best outcomes from their medicines.

Click here to view these standards

Library Secondary Care

Developing and sustaining a practice based strategy for reducing healthcare associated infections programme

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date August 10, 2012

By Foundation of Nursing Studies (2012)

This evaluation report looks at a programme which aimed to enable clinically based project teams to implement a strategy for developing, changing and evaluating practice to reduce and prevent healthcare associated infections. It identified clinical leadership; effective strategic support; clinical team involvement; and use of practice development methods as key to successfully reducing healthcare associated infections.

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Library Secondary Care Third Sector

Guides to monitoring quality during transition published

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date August 8, 2012

By The Department of Health (2012)

A series of “How to” guides to assist current NHS organisations, and their supervisory and regulatory bodies, to respond to quality risks and failures within a simple and single framework during this transition year has been produced.

Click here to view the ‘How To’ guides

Library Secondary Care Third Sector

Preparing for the francis report: how to ensure quality in the NHS

Post author By Sarah Woodhall
Post date August 8, 2012

By The King’s Fund (2012)

This paper examines how the system of quality assurance, including regulation, needs to evolve, the principles on which it should be built and how it should operate. The authors argue that the system of quality assurance must support the actions and effectiveness of those working at the front line and of those who manage and lead organisations that deliver care. It is intended to help to shape the debate about how quality can be assured in future and inform how organisations at every level of the system including government, professional and other regulators, local providers and individual professionals will respond to the challenges that the events at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust have highlighted.

Click here to view this paper