RCOT welcomes NHS England vision for personalised care

The Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) welcome the publication today of NHS England’s vision and model for personalised care: Universal Personalised Care: Implementing the Personalised Care Model. Click here to read response.

Research highlights ‘patient-centred care’ needs to be more than an NHS buzzword

Read our response to National Voices research, which found that only 3% of people with one or more long term condition reported having a written plan for their care and support. Read Healthwatch article here

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

Breast screening: interval cancers and duty of candour toolkit

Guidance from Public Health England on the role of breast screening and symptomatic services in identifying interval cancer and giving results to female patients.

The Fifteen Steps Challenge – Quality from a patient’s perspective: A toolkit for clinics and outpatient settings

This document from NHS England, focuses on clinics and outpatient settings, is part of a suite of toolkits for The Fifteen Steps Challenge, which helps to explore patient experience and are a way of involving patients, carers and families in quality assurance processes.

Patient and Public Voice (PPV) Partners and Chairs Survey November 2016

This NHS England report outlines the findings of a 2016 survey of PPV partners and chairs on their views and experiences. It finds that whilst most respondents feel that their input is valued, some are unsure of the impact of their role. The results also highlight areas in which improvements could be made in the role and activity of PPV partners.

Public Engagement Strategy 2017-2021

The CQC's new strategy for how it will engage with the public. Making better use of people’s views, working closely with representative organisations and publishing simple, clear information are at the centre of its plans for engaging the public over the next four years.

Have your say on which products should be available on prescription

The NHS wants to know which drugs and treatments patients think should be made available on prescription. 

The consultation is focusing on medicines deemed to be a low priority for NHS funding, and could see items currently available on prescription no longer offered in this way.

3,200 items are being reviewed, including products such as sunscreen, laxatives, eye drops and eczema cream. In the future, people may have to buy such things over the counter.

Developing accountable care systems: lessons from Canterbury, New Zealand

New article published by the King's Fund

There are clear parallels between pressures the Canterbury health system was facing at the start of its programme of transformation and current pressures on the NHS – including financial deficits, rising demand and declining performance in emergency and elective care. Given the positive impact that the changes in Canterbury have had, it is worth considering the lessons that the NHS can learn as it embarks on its own journey of transformation. 

The interventions and delivery models used in Canterbury offer practical lessons for other health systems, as does its approach to change, which includes a strong emphasis on system working, staff engagement, co-design and continuous quality improvement. Technology has been key to Canterbury’s success, and local investment and innovation have been central to this. Developing solutions in partnership with clinical users has been key to their successful design and uptake.

UK health system comes out on top in new report

The UK was rated first out of 11 countries in a report on international healthcare systems published by the Commonwealth Fund.

The report compared the UK to healthcare systems in the US, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Australia.

The Commonwealth Fund’s report ranks the UK first overall and first for care process (prevention, safe care, coordination, and patient engagement) and equity (comparison of performance for higher- and lower-income individuals). The UK also scores highly in terms of getting value out of the money the tax payer puts in.

Parent secures changes to orthotics services by sharing her son’s experience

Rebecca’s son has needed orthotics support since he could stand. Such devices help people to move, to live independently, and to relieve pain.

When he was nine, Rebecca’s son’s orthopaedic surgeon recommended serial casting to set his foot straight. He should have had an ankle foot orthosis to wear immediately afterwards to keep his foot and ankle straight. However, it took 17 weeks for this to be made available, and within days he had lost all his mobility, and later had to undergo complex surgery.

All of this had a huge impact on his development, education and emotional wellbeing. To find out if this experience was common, Rebecca spoke to lots of other parents and found that many had had similar experiences, which left them feeling stressed and anxious. To help make sure services were listening to what these parents had to say, Rebecca contacted Healthwatch Staffordshire to share what she’d found.

Together with Healthwatch England, they spoke to NHS England which then agreed to create new standards, changing the way orthotics services were commissioned. Rebecca was also invited to review the final guidelines and she continues to spend her free-time making sure orthotics services are following the new rules.

Some women in the UK still unaware of cervical screening

"Nearly a quarter of women who don't make cervical screening appointments are unaware that the process even exists, according to a UK survey," BBC News reports.

This study found about a quarter of eligible women didn't go for a cervical screening test. Most women who didn't attend either said they were unaware of screening or that they intended to go, but were overdue for their appointment.

Delivery costs extra: can STPs survive without the funding they need?

This report from the British Medical Association analyses all 44 STP plans and highlights concerns around poor engagement with clinicians, patients and the public and the challenging timeline of STP implementation without upfront funding to deliver the plans. The report is also accompanied by a paper summarising each STP plan and a glossary of commonly used acronyms.

Two new bite-size guides to insight and feedback published

Two further bite-size guides to patient insight have been launched to help CCGs and providers to carry out qualitative research and to gather feedback from people with a learning disability.

Children’s Hospital Passport

The Hospital Passport contains important information, such as medical history, medications and baseline health for the child, and also contains information about how a child communicates; how they express pain and anxiety, their likes and dislikes.

The practitioner should read the Hospital Passport prior to meeting the patient so that they may build up a rapport and put into place any reasonable adjustments. This could include communication technique, or the way a medical intervention is carried out. This enables staff to understand the child in a unique way and therefore prevent any diagnostic overshadowing and discrimination due to disability.

Patients and physicians benefit from referring wisely

The Royal College of Physicians' (RCP's) Referring wisely report aims to start a conversation between physicians about the referral processes they use each day and seeks to aid the streamlining of such processes in the long term.

It is often the case that patients are seen by many different clinicians during their time in hospital and there is a great deal of variability in the pattern of referrals between both generalist and specialist physicians. This is due in part to variation in service, but also to the fact that there is no clear consensus on which conditions lie under the generalist and which would benefit from specialist input.

2016 adult inpatient survey: statistical release

This CQC report outlines the findings of the 2016 adult inpatient survey which illustrates the experiences of care of over 77,000 patients who received care in an NHS hospital during July 2016.

The report identifies significant improvements in the quality of communication and confidence in medical staff however it warns that there are a substantial amount of areas which have shown decline such as patient involvement, waiting times and post-discharge care.

Implementing shared decision making in the NHS: lessons from the MAGIC programme

This review summarises the MAGIC programme for adopting shared decision making, and details the common challenges associated with implementation. Key messages include the fact that skills and attitudes are more valuable than specific tools, and that organisation support is vital

BMJ 2017;357:j1744

What’s Stopping You Appointing A Patient Director? An open letter to all healthcare organisations

Very few organisations employ a patient director, a senior executive responsible for turning all the rhetoric about involvement and patient-centred care into reality.

In an open letter to healthcare chief executives, David Gilbert, patient director at Sussex MSK Partnership, asks what’s stopping other organisations from following suit.  

A New Relationship With People And Communities: Actions For Delivering Chapter 2 Of The NHS Five Year Forward View

As part of the NHS five year forward view, the People and Communities Board was invited to recommended a set of high-impact actions for adopting person- and community-centred approaches to health and social care. Chapter two of the forward view sets out a vision of health and care where people are fully engaged with their health. This report outlines actions and related recommendations for making this vision a reality. The actions address key areas in the NHS where substantial progress can be made over the next year.