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Showing results for tags 'Policies'.
Found 131 results
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Content ArticleHow have the numbers of doctors in the NHS who come from the EU and the European Free Trade Association changed since the Brexit referendum in 2016? And do certain specialties face particular problems? Martha McCarey and Mark Dayan take a closer look at what’s happened since the vote.
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News Article
Prescribing art and gardening for patients may be a waste of money
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The “social prescribing” of gardening, singing and art classes is a waste of NHS money, a study suggests. Experts found that sending patients to community activity groups had “little to no impact” on improving health or reducing demand on GP services. The research calls into question a major drive from the NHS and Department of Health to increase social prescribing as a solution to the shortage of doctors and medical staff. In 2019 the NHS set a target of referring 900,000 patients for such activities via their GP surgeries within five years. Projects receiving government funding include football to support mental health, art for dementia, community gardening and singing classes to help patients to recover from Covid. However, the study, published in the journal BMJ Open, said there was “scant evidence” to support the mass rollout of so-called “social prescribing link workers”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 18 October 2022 -
News Article
Mental health policies for drug users not being followed in Scotland, say experts
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Scotland’s health services are failing to tackle a mental health crisis affecting thousands of people with drug or alcohol problems because the right policies are not being followed, an expert body has found. The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, a statutory body founded to protect the human rights of people with mental illness, said only a minority of health professionals were using the correct strategies and plans for at-risk patients. Dr Arun Chopra, its medical director, said there had been a “collective failure” to act: few local services were using the correct procedures despite so much evidence about the scale of Scotland’s drugs and alcohol problems. Nearly four in five of those professionals said their patients were not given the documented care plans required by national policy. Of the 89 family doctors interviewed, 90% had experienced difficulties referring patients to mental health services or addiction services. In some cases, mental health services then rejected patients because they were addicts, without helping them find the right support. The commission recommended far clearer policies, protocols, auditing and monitoring by health boards and the Scottish government, with better training for professionals. Health workers needed to stop stigmatising patients and see patients as people affected by trauma. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 September 2022 -
Content ArticleThe Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) commissioned Ipsos to conduct an online poll of UK adults aged 16-75 to better understand their views on emergency care. The poll revealed that confidence in the UK Government’s approach to tackling long waits for patients in A&E is low, with 59% of respondents expressing a lack of confidence that the UK Government has the right policies to tackle long patient waiting times in A&E departments in hospitals. RCEM’s five priorities below for UK Governments will #ResuscitateEmergencyCare to ensure the emergency care system is there for us all in our time of need.
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Content ArticleThis letter to NHS mental health trusts, Integrated Care Boards and Commissioners outlines NHS England's position on the use of Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) in NHS mental health services. SIM is a model of care that has been used with people with mental health issues who are considered high-intensity users of emergency services. It is a controversial approach as it instructs services providing emergency care not to provide support to these individuals.
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Content ArticleThe UK Rare Diseases Framework was published in January 2021 and set out a shared vision for addressing health inequalities and improving the lives of people living with rare diseases across the UK. This is England’s second Rare Diseases Action Plan, following the commitment to publish action plans annually during the lifetime of the UK Rare Diseases Framework. This action plan has been developed in close collaboration with delivery partners across the health system and the rare disease community. It reports on progress against the 16 actions set out in the first Rare Diseases Action Plan and announces 13 new specific, measurable actions for the next year under the framework’s priority areas and underpinning themes.
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Content ArticleA framework from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) setting out a coherent, national vision on how the UK will improve the lives of those living with rare diseases. The framework outlines 4 key national priorities: helping patients get a final diagnosis faster increasing awareness among healthcare professionals better co-ordination of care improving access to specialist care, treatment and drugs.
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Content Article
WHO: Introducing the Patient Safety Friendly Hospital Initiative
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in WHO
The Patient Safety Friendly Hospital Initiative (PSFHI) aims to address the burden of unsafe care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. It helps institutions in countries of the Region to launch comprehensive patient safety programmes, with assistance from the World Health Organization (WHO). -
News Article
Brexit has worsened shortage of NHS doctors, analysis shows
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, research reveals. The disclosure comes as growing numbers of medics quit in disillusionment at their relentlessly busy working lives in the increasingly overstretched health service. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians. Britain has 4,285 fewer European doctors than if the rising numbers who were coming before the Brexit vote in 2016 had been maintained since then, according to analysis by the Nuffield Trust. In 2021, a total of 37,035 medics from the EU and European free trade area (EFTA) were working in the UK. However, there would have been 41,320 – or 4,285 more – if the decision to leave the EU had not triggered a “slowdown” in medical recruitment from the EU and the EFTA quartet of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The dropoff has left four major types of medical specialities that have longstanding doctor shortages – anaesthetics, children, psychiatry, and heart and lung treatment – failing to keep up with a demand for care heightened by Covid and an ageing population. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 November 2022 -
News Article
NHS: MPs pilot system to measure delivery of key pledges
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
MPs are to launch a new system for evaluating whether key health targets are being met in England. A panel of experts reporting to the Commons health committee will assess progress made on policy commitments, starting with maternity services. They will rate performance from "outstanding" to "inadequate" and seek to drive improvements where needed. Panel chair Dame Jane Dacre said it would be "fair and impartial" in its findings. She said she was keen to ask recent patients and users of NHS services to contribute to the panel's work as well as specialists in chosen fields, all of whom would have no political affiliation. "It will be challenging, but I am committed to using available evidence to evaluate pledges, with the aim of improving patient care," she added. The panel will scrutinise, on behalf of the health committee, major commitments made by the Department of Health, NHS England, NHS Improvement and other public bodies. It will base its approach on the Care Quality Commission, which evaluates care homes, hospitals, GP practices and other health services. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 August 2020 -
News Article
CQC plan to restart inspections needed like ‘hole in head’, says Confed
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued a plan for re-starting routine inspections — but has been warned by the NHS Confederation that the health service needs this “like a hole in the head”. The organisation said there would be a “managed return” of “routine inspections” in the autumn. It also stated in a statement today: ”Inspectors are now scheduling inspections of higher risk services to take place over the summer.” But the CQC later insisted to HSJ that this was not a change to its current policy, in place since the beginning of the UK COVID-19 peak, as it would only be inspecting in response to information it receives which raises “serious concerns”. The CQC suspended its routine inspections in March – and has instead been calling healthcare providers and only physically attending where there are serious concerns about harm, abuse or human rights breaches. The new approach to regulation, which the CQC called its “emergency support framework”, was criticised by 11 older people’s and disabled groups, which said the decision not to carry out routine inspections broke human rights and equalities laws. Read full story Source: HSJ, 17 June 2020 -
Content ArticleCorporate interests have the potential to influence public debate and policymaking by influencing the research agenda, namely the initial step in conducting research, in which the purpose of the study is defined and the questions are framed. Fabbri et al. conducted a scoping review to identify and synthesise studies that explored the influence of industry sponsorship on research agendas across different fields. The authors concluded that corporate interests can drive research agendas away from questions that are the most relevant for public health. Strategies to counteract corporate influence on the research agenda are needed, including heightened disclosure of funding sources and conflicts of interest in published articles to allow an assessment of commercial biases. The authors also recommend policy actions beyond disclosure such as increasing funding for independent research and strict guidelines to regulate the interaction of research institutes with commercial entities.
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Content ArticleSweden was well equipped to prevent the pandemic of COVID-19 from becoming serious. Over 280 years of collaboration between political bodies, authorities, and the scientific community had yielded many successes in preventive medicine. Sweden’s population is literate and has a high level of trust in authorities and those in power. During 2020, however, Sweden had ten times higher COVID-19 death rates compared with neighbouring Norway. In this report, Nele Brusselaers et al. try to understand why, using a narrative approach to evaluate the Swedish COVID-19 policy and the role of scientific evidence and integrity. We argue that that scientific methodology was not followed by the major figures in the acting authorities—or the responsible politicians—with alternative narratives being considered as valid, resulting in arbitrary policy decisions.
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Content ArticleThe 'Policy Makers’ Forum: Patient Safety Implementation on 23–24 February 2022' was convened to sustain the global patient safety movement and initiate national action by policy makers and healthcare leaders for implementation of the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030. The forum provided a global platform for engaging with senior policy makers and healthcare leaders in the discussion around implementation approaches for the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030 within broader health agenda at country level; and also allowed sharing of best practices and lessons learned in addressing patient safety at policy and practice levels. WHO’s Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Deputy Director-General Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, and Global patient safety advocate Mr Jeremy Hunt, Chair of the UK Health and Social Care Select Committee delivered messages expressing their commitment to patient safety. The event also included keynote addresses, diverse country experiences with innovative implementation approaches, and a panel discussion on the role of policy makers and health care leaders in implementation of the global action plan. WHO introduced a draft consensus statement on the same topic for review and consensus of the event participants, which is currently being finalised based on the inputs received during the highly interactive breakout sessions.
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Content ArticleHealthcare professionals need clearer guidance on responding to racism in paediatric settings, argue Zeshan Qureshi and colleagues.
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Content ArticlePodcast from the NHS England and NHS Improvement National Patient Safety Team, where Tracey Herlihey, head of patient safety incident response policy, and Lauren Mosley, head of patient safety implementation, talk about the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) which will be launched in Spring 2022. The framework is a key component of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy, and will outline how NHS providers should respond to patient safety incidents and how and when a patient safety investigation should be conducted. Once implementation is completed it will replace the current Serious Incident Framework. The podcast gives an overview of PSIRF and its key features, talks about findings from work with early adopters over the past two years to pilot an introductory version of the framework, and explains what providers can do now to prepare for its launch in the Spring.
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Content ArticleA review of government policies tackling smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity and harmful alcohol use in England.
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Content ArticleThe Covid-19 pandemic has precipitated a huge increase in the use of digital technology in healthcare. This is a welcome development following years of slow progress in embedding digital technologies into England’s NHS. This Nuffield Trust report explores the approach that other countries have taken to advance digital health. It asks four key research questions: How have policy-makers in different countries defined the objectives of digitalisation within healthcare? What policy approaches have been used in different countries to support and promote digitalisation in healthcare? What worked well, what were the challenges and how were they overcome? What are the implications for NHS digital health policy?
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Content ArticleWhen the history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written, it is likely to show that the mental models held by scientists sometimes facilitated their thinking, thereby leading to lives saved, and at other times constrained their thinking, thereby leading to lives lost. This paper from Trisha Greenhalgh explores some competing mental models of how infectious diseases spread and shows how these models influenced the scientific process and the kinds of facts that were generated, legitimised and used to support policy.
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Content ArticleMandatory and voluntary safety reporting policies are an extremely important part of providing guidance for safety reporting in aviation safety management systems (SMS). This blog highlights the purpose of safety reporting policies, how to train employees on voluntary vs mandatory reporting, and how to encourage mandatory and voluntary safety reporting. Although written for the aviation industry, many of the principles can be applied to healthcare.
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Content ArticleThe King's Fund report is intended primarily for hospital board members, clinicians and managers in hospitals. We hope that it will contribute to and provide support for their continuous efforts to improve patients’ experience, and that it will also be of interest to patients and their representatives, commissioners and policy-makers. The purpose of the report is to consider how we can improve the patients’ experience of care. The report introduces current debates and dilemmas in relation to patients’ experience of care in hospital, presents our view of the factors that shape that experience, and assesses the evidence to support various interventions that are designed to tackle the problems.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the country’s health systems and diminished its capability to provide safe and effective healthcare. This article from Sharda Narwal and Susmit Jain attempts to review patients safety issues during COVID-19 pandemic in India, and derive lessons from national and international experiences to inform policy actions for building a ‘resilient health system’
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Content ArticleIn this report, the government sets out reforms to the public health system in England and invite you to share your insights and experience to help them with the next stages of our work. Your feedback will help to shape the future of the public health system. This update focuses on structural reforms, which are a vital enabler of delivering better and more equal outcomes on public health, but they are just one aspect of public health reform. Its focus is the public health system for England, but chapter two highlights the interaction with important UK-wide elements of our health protection response. A further update will be published later in 2021 with final details on design, structure and implementation, and it will also set out government's plans for the policies, delivery and outcomes they want this reformed system to drive and deliver.
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Content ArticleThis document from NHS England offers a practical interpretation of the Managing conflicts of interest guidance, providing optional content to support organisations in amending local policies. The guidance: introduces common principles and rules for managing conflicts of interest provides simple advice to staff and organisations about what to do in common situations supports good judgement about how interests should be approached and managed Sets out the issues and rationale behind the policies.
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Content Article“Sunshine” policy, aimed at making financial ties between health professionals and industry publicly transparent, has gone global. Given that transparency is not the sole means of managing conflict of interest, and is unlikely to be effective on its own, it is important to understand why disclosure has emerged as a predominant public policy solution, and what the effects of this focus on transparency might be.
