No hospital is an island: Acute Care collaborations demonstrate new ways of working

A new report on lessons learnt from the acute care collaborations includes case studies highlighting how vanguards are finding new ways to:

· Standardise clinical practice, pooling expertise, sharing vital patient information and analysing patient care across hospitals.

· Make better use of clinical support services, such as imaging and pathology.

· More creatively and flexibly use the skills of their healthcare professionals, reducing reliance on agency staff.

· Build innovative external partnerships with, for example, the pharmaceutical industry.

· Support more integrated health systems that champion person-centred care.

· Consolidate corporate support functions to generate efficiencies.

The report is available in full here https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/no-hospital-is-an-island-learning-from-the-acute-care-collaboratives/ 

Join enhanced care improvement collaborative for inpatient acute/community trusts

NHS Improvement is launching an enhanced care improvement collaborative in March 2018 to deliver an improved experience for critically ill or vulnerable patients in hospital. The programme will build on the learning from the pilot programme in 2015/16 and roll out best practice.

Working with other health and care partners – a suggested checklist for LPCs

This PSNC Briefing, which is aimed at Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC) Chief Officers and members, provides a suggested checklist for developing relationships with other health and care partners including Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs) / aspirant Accountable Care Systems (ACSs) and Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) staff and members and GPs. This Briefing is an updated version of one previously published in 2013 and it draws upon recent feedback and advice from LPC Chief Officers collated by PSNC.

Transforming Urgent and Emergency Care and the Vanguard Initiative: Learning from Evaluation of the Southern Cluster

Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) vanguards aim to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of UEC services so that patients receive the most appropriate care at the right time and in the right place, and so that unnecessary admissions to accident and emergency (A&E) and hospitals are reduced. The Southern Cluster comprises three such UEC vanguards. RAND Europe's evaluation examined the impacts of the vanguards, the processes underpinning delivery (and associated enablers and challenges), and implications for future policy and practice.

The evaluation used a multi-method approach, including theories of change, document review, workshops, interviews, surveys and data dashboards. Rand's report makes recommendations concerning: (i) UEC health and care workforce capacity-building, (ii) local-national coordination around UEC transformation, (iii) collaboration across localities and professions, (iv) support for an end-to-end UEC pathway with mutually reinforcing activities, (v) cost and outcome data, (vi) an interoperable data infrastructure, and (vii) capacity for evaluation and learning.

Enabling providers to develop new care models

Commissioners will play an important role in empowering providers to work together to establish the collaborations that may evolve to become the accountable care systems of the future.  Find out more in these four articles, published by PCC:

• Getting GPs on board remains a big issue for accountable care organisations
• NHS England’s proposed contractual approaches for accountable care models
• Commissioners must drive but leave providers to steer new care models
• Accountable care organisations need support to get GPs’ pay right

Commissioning framework for biological medicines

The purpose of this document from NHS England is to support commissioners to act promptly to make the most of the opportunity presented by increased competition amongst biological medicines, including biosimilar medicines. In particular, this framework seeks to set out the importance of taking a collaborative approach to the commissioning of biological medicines, including biosimilar medicines, from the outset, as well as setting out how this can be achieved.

Scrutiny: the new assurance? A good governance discussion document

As collaboration and partnership working need to become more streamlined, more strategic and more effective, organisations spending public monies should be constantly redefining their roles and responsibilities, searching for constant improvement. 

This paper from the Good Governance Institute looks at scrutiny across a number of organisations, as all four home nations are seeking better outcomes by the alignment of health, social care and other funders and providers.

Partnerships for improvement: ingredients for success

The idea of partnerships and collaboration across organisational boundaries is at the heart of NHS reforms in England. Although we have helped to develop the evidence base for how networks of people can improve quality of care, less is known about what makes for successful partnerships between providers at an organisational level.

For this reason, the Nuffield Trust commissioned the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham to look at a range of current organisational partnerships. This report focuses on five different partnering arrangements, as well as interviews with national leaders, and draws learning to help inform and guide policymakers and providers.

Is the NHS being privatised?

New article published by the King's Fund

Following the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the number of contracts awarded to private providers increased, though there is little evidence of a significant increase in spending on private providers or widespread privatisation of NHS services. In many cases the use of private providers to treat NHS patients reflects operational challenges within NHS providers and is a continuation of longstanding practices. Provided that patients receive care that it is timely and free at the point of use, our view is that the provider of a service is less important than the quality and efficiency of the care they deliver. More positively, the NHS can benefit from partnerships and joint ventures with the private sector to deliver some clinical and non-clinical services.

A playbook for fostering hospital-community partnerships to build a culture of health

This guidance, from the American Hospital Association, outlines a range of methods, tools and strategies to help create and sustain partnerships between hospitals and communities in order to create a culture of health. The guidance also uses insights from cohorts of a pilot programme on how to manage, strengthen and accelerate collaborations effectively.

Capital collaborations between the NHS and local authorities

CIPFA and the HFMA have worked together to produce this briefing as an initial output from a joint workshop on capital funding in the NHS.

The briefing provides background on the local authority and NHS funding mechanisms, including the prudential code under which local authority treasury management and borrowing is determined. It sets out the problems that NHS bodies currently face in relation to capital funding and identifies some opportunities for working together on capital projects.

Sustainability and transformation plans: how series are the proposals? A critical review

This report from the London South Bank University, School of Health and Social Care argues that in order to deliver a better future for the NHS all 44 STPs would need to be given legislative powers and support necessary to achieve effective collaboration, plus some much-needed clarification on their role.

It also recommends that STP leaders need to plan ahead based on the reality of their current situation, identify changes that are evidence-based, develop workforce plans that match their ambitions, and focus on reducing demand before removing resources from the acute sector. Alongside the main report, 44 sub-reports are available, each critically reviewing the plans for each STP locality.

Trustworthy Collaboration - the challenges of building trust across health systems

Trustworthy Collaboration, written for NHS Employers by Prof Veronica Hope-Hailey of the University of Bath, explores the challenges of building trust across health systems, in the context of the 50 vanguard sites tasked with delivering transformational change through new care models.

Open innovation in health: A guide to transforming healthcare through collaboration

NESTA has published Open innovation in health: a guide to transforming healthcare through collaboration. This guide explores examples of open innovation in the field of health from around the world. It analyses the ways that companies, governments, researchers and citizens are collaborating to improve the innovation process, from the way that problems are identified to how new products and services are created and then adopted by providers of healthcare

Improving outcome measurement in liaison mental health care

Liaison mental health care has a key role in a mental health emergency and bridge physical and mental health in acute general hospitals. One year on from the launch of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and with NHS England’s national transformation programme supporting the development of liaison mental health services across the country, consultant liaison psychiatrist Alex Thomson and colleagues James Hughes and Genevieve Holt, from CNWL discuss how a focus on outcomes allows its staff and patients to work together to improve services.

Knowledge Transfer Partnership announced

NHS England has launched its first Knowledge Transfer Partnership Programme, a 12 month development programme, aimed at clinical leaders in healthcare science.

Successful applicants who secure a place will work with other leading healthcare scientists and build long-term collaborations across clinical, research and industry sectors, whilst identifying new approaches to measuring improved outcomes, ultimately for NHS patients.

Maternal and neonatal health safety collaborative

A three-year programme from NHS Improvement to support improvement in the quality and safety of maternity and neonatal units across England.  Includes:

• Aims of the programme
• Programme structure
• Our support offer
• Background to our work
• Resources
• Articles

Collaboration is key to the diabetes model of care

Dr Partha Kar, Associate National Clinical Director for Diabetes for NHS England, talks about the Portsmouth Super Six model of care, one of those which tried to answer the million dollar question: which bits of diabetes care need to be in hospitals?

Drug misuse prevention: targeted interventions

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

This guideline highlights the role that local authorities can play in targeting people who use drugs or are at risk from doing so. It argues that local authorities can work together with gyms, nightclubs, festivals, sexual health services and supported accommodation for homeless people to make clear the support services and advice that are available.

• Guideline
• Press release

Salisbury therapists launch integrative working initiative

Physiotherapists in Wiltshire are collaborating with occupational therapists on a quality improvement project aimed at better rehab and patient care.