Six areas Healthwatch wants NHS England to focus on in 2018

Using the views you have shared, find out what six areas Healthwatch has told the Government that NHS England should focus on over the next year to improve health and social care for people.

1. Improving public involvement in changes to local services
2. Using people’s experiences of leaving hospital as a way of measuring how well services are working together
3. Demonstrating how learning from feedback is improving care
4. Increasing focus on the evaluation of mental health services
5. Shifting the focus of NHS targets to take greater account of people's experiences
6. Tackling access issues in NHS dentistry

Evaluating reward guide and template

NHS Employers' step by step guide to evaluating reward will help you understand and demonstrate the impact of your reward approach. It also helps you test your activities, improve communication and identify and replicate good practice.

The guide looks at the steps to consider when planning your evaluation and includes some examples of measurable outputs, ideas of activities and a template evaluation plan for you to use.

Connecting allied health professionals (AHPs)

NHS Improvement recently hosted four regional events for provider AHP leads on evidencing the quality and productivity of AHPs’ care.

The events provided an introductionopens in a new window to the Model Hospital, AHP job planning, and the early findings of a deployment tracker metric that some AHP leads are currently implementing.

Measuring and monitoring of safety framework e-guide: better questions, safer care

This guide has been produced in conjunction with Advancing Quality Alliance, UK Improvement Alliance, Health Improvement Scotland and the Improvement Academy.

It contains a range of useful resources to help health and care professionals to take a more holistic approach when looking at the safety of care. It also offers detailed case studies and practical templates spanning roles from board to ward, and across ambulance, acute, mental health and primary care settings.

NHS England’s Chief Scientific Officer’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership winners announced

NHS England, in partnership with the National Measurement System (NMS) has announced the winners of its first Chief Scientific Officer’s (CSO) Knowledge Transfer Partnership Programme.

The bespoke 12 month development programme gives clinical leaders in healthcare science the opportunity to create, test and implement innovative ideas to improve patient care and identify new approaches to measurement and outcomes.

The programme involves collaboration at a senior level with partner organisations across the UK’s National Measurement System (NMS) at leading centres of excellence in science and technology. It is designed to enable senior healthcare scientists to remain in clinical service whilst building long term partnerships between clinical, research and industry teams.

This collaboration and learning from other science led organisations is crucial to putting science and innovation at the heart of the NHS, delivering the next steps on the five year forward view and ensuring sustained improvements to scientific services for patient benefit.

Age And Utilities: Issues For HTA

This paper from the Office of Health Economics investigates whether and how age affects respondents’ Time Trade-Off (TTO) and Visual Analogue Scale valuations of hypothetical EQ-5D health states using data from the 1993 MVH UK valuation study. 

A key finding is the existence of an inverse U-shaped age-utility pattern, with respondents in their forties tending to provide the highest TTO values, and the oldest respondents valuing health profiles systematically (and significantly) lower than younger age groups. This trend is particularly visible for profiles describing problems in the mobility or the self-care dimensions.

Outcome Performance Measure Development for Persons with Multiple Chronic Conditions

This report from the RAND Corporation summarises analyses to assess the reliability and validity of a patient-reported outcome performance measure: the Veterans RAND twelve-item health survey (VR-12). The report makes recommendations towards the future use of performance measures and argues for the need for evaluation of the psychometrics of these measures at practice level.

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.

Physio urges prescribers of all disciplines to improve pain assessments

CSP member Paul Cameron, national lead clinician for chronic pain in Scotland, speaking at a national conference on non-medical prescribing for pain, held in London on 10 February, told delegates it was essential for non-medical prescribers to maintain their competence and skills so they could prescribe for pain in an effective way.

To help achieve this he outlined the pros and cons of a variety of pain assessment models, including the World Health Organization’s three-step ‘pain ladder’, which is commonly used as a framework for providing symptomatic pain relief.

Diagnosing acute myocardial infarction in the presence of ventricular pacing: can Sgarbossa criteria help?

New from BestBETs:

In [patients presenting to the ED with possible acute coronary syndrome and who have ventricular paced rhythm on the ECG], can [Sgarbossa criteria or Smith-modified Sgarbossa criteria] be used to [rule in AMI and/or acute coronary occlusion (ACO)]?

The clinical bottom line is that there is little current evidence to determine the value of the original and modified Sgarbossa criteria for diagnosing AMI or acute coronary occlusion. While further research is clearly needed, the existing evidence suggests that the original Sgarbossa criteria can ‘rule in’ acute coronary occlusion with high specificity.

Screening for delirium within the Emergency Department

New from BestBETs:

In [patients, greater than 75 years, presenting to the emergency department] is [an abbreviated mental test score assessment better than other cognitive screening tools] at [identifying delirium]?

The abbreviated mental test score has been largely adopted as a delirium screening tool within UK hospitals and there is little evidence in the literature evaluating its use within the ED setting.

Validity of Exercise Measures in Adults with Anorexia Nervosa: The EDE, Compulsive Exercise Test and Other Self-Report Scales

International Journal of Eating Disorders. 3 October 2016. DOI: 10.1002/eat.22633

Compulsive exercise is a prominent feature for the majority of patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN), but there is a dearth of research evaluating assessment instruments. This study assessed the concurrent validity of the exercise items of the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) and Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q), with the Compulsive Exercise Test (CET) and other self-report exercise measures in patients with AN. We also aimed to perform validation of the CET in an adult clinical sample.

UHCW Research: Caroline Meyer

New guide on Patient Reported Outcome Measures

The aim of this guide from NHS England is to highlight PROMs related resources available, and explain to provider trusts & clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) how national PROMs data can be used to monitor performance, understand and investigate variation, and inform commissioning decisions and conversations with provider trusts.

User feedback in maternity services

Patient feedback is an important tool for tracking the experience of those who use NHS services and, through this, the quality of care they receive. It also plays a key role in identifying problem areas and shaping service improvements. Maternity services are using a variety of feedback mechanisms, in addition to national tools, to help them understand women’s experience of maternity services.

This report from the King's Fund looks at what maternity services are doing locally to collect, analyse and act on user feedback. It describes the challenges of adopting the different approaches and highlights the features of organisations that are successful in user feedback activities.

Systematic review of approaches to using patient experience data for quality improvement in healthcare settings

Explores how patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) are collected, communicated and used to inform quality improvement (QI) across healthcare settings.

BMJ Open 2016;6:e011907 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011907 

Improving the Clinic Experience through Patient Surveying

Case study from Dell Children's Medical Center on improving clinic experience through surveying patients.

Creating a Culture of Family Satisfaction Assessment in Critical Care

Case study from Yale New Haven Hospital

Standard HCAHPS surveys currently provide limited insight into the experience of patients hospitalized in neuroscience intensive care units (ICUs) and their families. The HCAHPS survey (1) is meant to be filled out by patients only, when many brain injured patients are unable to do so reliably; (2) excludes patients who are discharged to skilled nursing facilities or hospice; where a substantial number of neuroscience ICU patients are transferred following hospitalization; and (3) does not contain questions to differentiate between a patient’s experience while in an ICU versus while on a regular inpatient floor. We thus sought to collect specific data on satisfaction with care from patients’ families in our neuroscience ICU for use in quality improvement initiatives.

Exploring the Value of Patient Experience

New post to the Beryl Institute Patient Experience Blog exploring the value of patient experience.