Swimming against the tide? The quality of NHS services during the current parliament
Health Foundation - This briefing summarises trends in the quality of NHS care in England since the 2010 general election. It examines the quality of NHS care in relation to five key dimensions: patient safety; waiting times; mental health care; person-centred care; and international comparisons with other systems.
Briefing
Health Foundation publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - March 26, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: General Election 2015 Mental Health NHS measurement and performance Patient involvement, experience and feedback Quality of care and clinical outcomes Source Type: blogs
The health care safety net: Put patients first
For many of the millions of low-income families seeking quality health care in the safety net, the quest can be bewildering. They may walk into a drab, disorganized and unwelcoming clinic, with the staff, signage, and endless medical forms all using unfamiliar language, with unexplained, lengthy waiting times, and with providers burying them in information they can’t understand. On a second visit, they may feel even worse when they end up encountering a different doctor, different staff, and a renewed sense of confusion.
Continue reading ...
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputat...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 17, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Peter Long, PhD Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs
Future in mind: promoting, protecting and improving our children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing
This report of the work of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce makes a number of proposals the government wishes to see by 2020. These include tackling stigma and improving attitudes to mental illness; introducing more access and waiting time standards for services; establishing ‘one stop shop’ support services in the community; and improving access for children and young people who are particularly vulnerable. It sets out how much of this can be achieved through better working between the NHS, local authorities, voluntary and community services, schools and other local services. It also makes it ...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - March 17, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Mental Health Source Type: blogs
Go Slow On Reference Pricing: Why The Federal Agencies Have It Wrong On Regulations
Despite concerns outlined in our previous post on reference pricing, federal oversight agencies essentially have taken a hands-off approach. First, they announced that for large group and self-insured plans, the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) annual maximum limits on out-of-pocket costs do not apply to charges above the reference price.
These limits are already high: $6,600 for an individual and $13,200 for family coverage in 2015. Without any discussion the agencies asserted that non-designated providers are out-of-network, and therefore cost sharing falls within the ACA’s exclusion of out-of-network cost from the ma...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 9, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: David Frankford and Sara Rosenbaum Tags: All Categories Business of Health Care Competition Consumers Cost Health Reform Insurance Payment Spending Source Type: blogs
What's behind the A&E 'crisis'?
Nuffield Trust - This briefing examines the real reasons behind England’s A&E ‘crisis’, and warns that the emphasis on the four-hour waiting time target has become disproportionate. It also makes some recommendations to policy makers on how performance management should be approached in the future.
Briefing
Nuffield Trust publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - March 6, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
Patient access to general practice: ideas and challenges from the frontline
This report argues that reducing waiting times for a GP appointment must be a priority for politicians and the incoming government but that this must not be delivered at the expense of other GP services, including the long-term care provided to patients with chronic and multiple health problems. It examines a wide range of initiatives to increase patient access to general practice but warns that this can only be achieved with increased funding and significantly more GPs.
Report
Press release (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - March 3, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Developments in primary and community care General Election 2015 Source Type: blogs
NHS indicators: February 2015
House of Commons Library - This paper provides a range of summary statistical indicators for NHS England in the following areas: accident and emergency attendance and performance; ambulance call volume and response times; waiting times for routine treatment; waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment; cancelled operations; delayed transfers of care; diagnostic waiting times and activity; waiting times for mental health treatment; workforce numbers for doctors, nurses and other staff; hospital activity, referrals and admissions; and bed availability and occupancy. In each case, trends are given over several year...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - February 17, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity NHS measurement and performance Source Type: blogs
Guidance to support the introduction of access and waiting time standards for mental health services in 2015/16
NHS England - This guidance is aimed at CCGs and how new access and waiting time standards for mental health services are to be introduced. It explains the case for change in four areas and sets out the expectations of local commissioners for delivery during the year ahead working with providers and other partners.
Guidance
NHS England news (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - February 13, 2015 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Commissioning Mental Health Source Type: blogs
Statistical literacy
Ben Goldacre (of Bad Science and Bad Pharma fame) was on BBC's Newsnight last night (Wednesday 4th) advocating severe punishments for politicians who misuse or abuse statistics. I am not sure I would go that far, but I think the point about misuse of statistics is a good one.One possible response to statistical misbehaviour is people being more statistically literate, so they can spot the misbehaviour. There is a discussion of the problem in Wikipedia.How much knowledge would we need to be statistically literate? If we are a healthcare practitioner trying to apply the results of a piece of res...
Source: Browsing - February 5, 2015 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: statistics Source Type: blogs
Last Year Was A Wild One For Health Law — What’s On The Docket For 2015?
Everywhere we look, we see the tremendous impact of new legal developments—whether regulatory or statutory, federal or state—on health and health care. These topics range from insurance to intellectual property to religion to professionalism to civil rights. They remain among the most important questions facing Americans today.
This post is the first in a series that will stem from the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event to be held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 30, 2015. The conference, which is free and open to the public, brings together leading experts to review major developments in he...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 22, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Gregory Curfman, Holly Fernandez Lynch, and I. Glenn Cohen Tags: Access All Categories Business of Health Care Coverage End-of-Life Care Health Care Costs Health Care Delivery Health Law Health Reform Physicians Policy Politics Public Health Veterans Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, December 15, 2014
From MedPage Today:
ED Throughput: A Fixable Problem. As I travel the freeways of the various cities I visit, I often come across billboards announcing waiting times at the local ED, or billboards promising no wait at all. Sometimes they just advertise “faster” care, whatever that means.
Mumps Checks NHL Players. It has been a bad year for mumps and not even elite athletes are immune.
Watch for Axial Back Pain in Psoriatic Pts. Patients with psoriasis have a higher prevalence of lower axial back pain than the general population while inflammatory back pain (IBP), spondyloarthritis (SpA), and alternating butto...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 15, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Emergency Infectious disease Rheumatology Source Type: blogs
The mandate: a mandate from the Government to NHS England - April 2015 to March 2016
Department of Health -The NHS mandate for 2015 to 2016 carries forward all existing objectives from the mandate for 2014 to 2015. There are two updates to existing objectives where we expect NHS England to make further progress: to join up health and social care services through the Better Care Fund and to introduce access and waiting time standards in important areas of mental health services by March 2016. It is structured around five main areas where the government expects NHS England to make improvements including preventing people from dying prematurely and enhancing quality of life for people with long-term condition...
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - December 12, 2014 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: Regulation, governance and accountability Source Type: blogs
Future Taxi Deregulation Will Not Look Familiar
Matthew Feeney
Those who have argued for the deregulation of the taxi industry will be familiar with the claim that taxi deregulation was tried in the U.S. and that the results were so undesirable that regulation was introduced. In a recent Washington Post article about ridesharing and taxi regulation, Catherine Rampell states that prices rose in deregulated taxi markets and that the latest calls for deregulation are only the latest in a familiar cycle. However, future taxi deregulation will be different from past deregulation schemes thanks to relatively new changes in technology that allow passengers to overcome knowled...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 11, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Matthew Feeney Source Type: blogs
Healthcare should be GST-exempt as promised in 2013
Right now there is some deliberation on what is GST exempt and what is not e.g. certain drugs. All this will have severe repercussions for the rakyat come 2015 when GST is immplemented. Things as it stands does not look good. No matter how you spin it, it appears that the cost of healthcare will go up. Some of the points below have yet to be decided and are still being negotiated. While there is some hope, we can only say to the rakyat, brace yourselves.
Media statement by FPMPAM President Dr. Steven Chow (via hotm)
Healthcare should be GST-exempt as promised in 2013
Kuala Lumpur, 27 November 2014 – In response to the st...
Source: Malaysian Medical Resources - November 28, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: palmdoc Tags: - Nation GST Source Type: blogs
The autumn statement: NHS funding
The King's Fund -The NHS is facing huge pressures as a result of an ongoing funding squeeze, rising demand for services and the need to safeguard quality of care following the Francis report. This briefing says that without the additional £2 billion, staff numbers will be cut, waiting times will rise and quality of care will deteriorate, leaving patients to bear the cost.
Briefing
The King's Fund - publications (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - November 26, 2014 Category: UK Health Authors: The King's Fund Information & Knowledge Service Tags: NHS finances and productivity Source Type: blogs
