The community mental health framework for adults and older adults

The Community Mental Health Framework describes how the Long Term Plan’s vision for a place-based community mental health model can be realised, and how community services should modernise to offer whole-person, whole-population health approaches, aligned with the new Primary Care Networks. View NHS England document here

How to provide community-based early intervention in mental ill health

An HSJ roundtable, sponsored by XenZone, looked at the advantages of early intervention, increasing primary prevention and the role of digital in improving outcomes.Click here to read Health Service Journal roundtable

Safeguarding adults with dementia: top tips

Effective safeguarding and risk assessment depend on building relationships with the person with dementia. Click here for link to CommunityCare article

Be the change : ensuring an effective response to all in psychiatric emergency equal to medical care

According to this report, care for people in mental health crisis does not adequately address the needs of the community it is intended to serve. It outlines ten recommendations that if fulfilled would make urgent and emergency psychiatric health care ‘minimally adequate’, and calls on governmental agencies, policy makers and health and social services to take radical action to address inequalities and improve mental health crisis care. Read King's Fund blog here

Flexi-working, less box filling and more time with adults – how one council is liberating its social workers and OTs

Flexi-working, less box filling and more time with adults – how one council is liberating its social workers and OTs - Click here for article

NHS operation productivity: unwarranted variations: mental health services and community services.

This review, carried out by Lord Carter, examines the productivity and efficiency of mental health and community health services. It identifies unwarranted variation in the delivery of the services, as well as potential savings of nearly £1 billion that could be made in efficiencies by 2020/21. It makes 16 recommendations to improve productivity and enable the benefits to be reinvested in improving quality and access to care. Click here for link to full report

Dementia-Friendly Rural Communities Guide

Rural communities have an important part to play in tackling the social and economic impact of dementia, by supporting people living with dementia to be part of their local community. This guide gives best practice advice on how to create a dementia-friendly community in rural areas and shares successful case studies from across the country. Click here to read Kings Fund Blog

NHS England pledges specialist mental health services for new mums in every part of the country

NHS England has confirmed that new and expectant mums will be able to access specialist perinatal mental health community services in every part of the country by April next year. Click here to view NHS England webpage

Nursing In The Digital Age: Using Technology To Support Patients In The Home

This report is based on a survey of over 500 nurses working in the community. It seeks to determine how far new healthcare information technology has changed and how skills and attitudes within community services have adapted. Read Kings Fund blog here

Five safe, sustainable and productive staffing improvement resources

NHS Improvement has published five safe, sustainable and productive staffing improvement resources in the areas of maternity services, adult inpatients in acute care, district nursing services, learning disability services and mental health.

Learning from the vanguards. Briefings from NHS Clinical Commissioners

Supporting people and communities to stay well
This briefing explores how the vanguards have sought to design health and care services around the needs of people who use them, focusing on the outcomes that matter to people and tailoring care to their needs and goals.

Staff at the heart of new care models

This briefing looks at how the vanguards have broken down traditional organisational barriers across whole systems, how they have engaged staff in the programmes, communicated change and supported staff to work differently.

Spreading and scaling up change
This briefing explores the ten key factors that the vanguards have identified are crucial to encourage the spread of initiatives.

Making sense of accountable care

Briefing from the King's Fund - making sense of accountable care:

Constraints on NHS funding over the past seven years, combined with rising demand from a growing and ageing population, have put the NHS under enormous pressure. It has been clear for some time that simply working our current hospital-based model of care harder to meet rising demand is not the answer. Rather, the NHS needs to work differently by providing more care in people’s homes and the community and breaking down barriers between services.

Also see the King's Fund briefing: acccountable care explained

Using Community Partnerships to Integrate Health and Social Services for High-Need, High-Cost Patients

This briefing from the Commonwealth Fund examines the evidence on integrated community health and care services for patients with complex and multiple needs in the U.S. It identifies the five common challenges to implementing an integrated approach successfully and outlines solutions for these challenges.

Nutritional care tool report 2017

The BAPEN nutritional care tool report provides organisational-level data on how nutritional care is organised and patient-level data on the quality of nutrition in hospitals, care homes and community organisations.

Physios win praise for cutting hospital admissions

Physiotherapists in Cumbria have been praised for an initiative with social care, which has reduced the number of people who need to be admitted to hospital.

The team worked with social care staff from the local Eden Community Response Team to strengthen assessment and care in the community, so reducing the number of people who need to be admitted to hospital.

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.

Transforming care: views sought on NHS quality checkers’ toolkits

NHS England is testing toolkits for quality checkers to use in the assessment of services for people with autism and/or learning disabilities including GPs, community services, dental, acute care, accident and emergency and mental health.

These draft toolkits have been co-produced with people with a learning disability, autism or both and include health issues that are important to them. Most of the toolkits have been tested in some NHS services, but NHS England wants to gain the views of people who work in the services, commissioners and others who are interested in this work. The closing date of 1 December 2017.

Flow in providers of community health services: good practice guidance

Good patient flow across health and social care systems is crucial for the NHS to run an effective and sustainable service. If patient flow is poor hospitals become congested, clinical outcomes are poorer, financial performance deteriorates and staff will be overstretched.

Delayed discharges from non-acute providers have risen as much as in acute providers over the last two years, and we recognise how important it is that we focus on the interface between community services, and other health and social care services.

Rehab Matters - film

Rehab Matters, is a short film, commissioned by the CSP, and made by Oscar-shortlisted UK director Chris Jones, looking at the difference community rehabilitation makes to the life of a woman who has just left hospital following a stroke.

People with learning disabilities and behaviour that challenges should be better cared for in the community, says NICE

Local authorities and NHS bodies should provide specialist community care for people with learning disabilities who behave in a way that challenges to avoid admissions to psychiatric wards or residential homes, new draft guidance from NICE says. Click here for news piece