Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Population health'.
Found 65 results
-
News Article
Alarming decline in vaccine update must be tackled, say MPs
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The UK’s status as a global leader on vaccination is at risk because of falling uptake rates among children and an “alarming” decline in clinical trial activity, MPs have warned. The Health and Social Care Committee said in a report that it was concerned that England did not meet the 95% target for any routine childhood immunisations in 2021-22.1 Committee chair Steve Brine MP said that new spikes in measles cases in London and the West Midlands because of low uptake of MMR vaccines should be a “massive wake-up call” for the government to take action. “Vaccination is the one of the greatest success stories when it comes to preventing infection. Unless the government tackles challenges around declining rates of childhood immunisations and implements reform on clinical trials, however, the UK’s position as a global leader on vaccination risks being lost,” he said. The Health and Social Care Committee said, “It is unacceptable that there are people who are unable to take advantage of the important protection that vaccination offers because of practical challenges of time and location that can and must be tackled.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 27 July 2023 -
Event
Population health: an opportunity to transform health and care
Sam posted an event in Community Calendar
The health and care system are in crisis with staff trying to address backlogs of care and the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, amid workforce shortages, financial constraints and a wider cost-of-living crisis. But how can the system move away from this new normal to a new way of working? Population health approaches offer the opportunity to move from a reactive system that treats patients when they are ill to one that proactively addresses the impact of wider social determinants on people’s heath and tackles the effects of health inequalities. Now is the time to start thinking differently about the health and care system. At this King's Fund event you will hear from local experts and international speakers about how the health and care system can begin to make this shift. It will discuss why population health offers a way to not only tackle health inequalities and improve the health of individuals and communities but can also provide solutions for a system under constant stress. New ideas will be discussed that are inspiring professionals across the sector and explore practical examples of how to address the inequalities social determinants create using a population health lens. Sharing of good-practice examples of how population health works within integrated care systems, how communities come together to promote better health outcomes for residents, and how leaders make a difference from local to national level to solve many of the problems facing the health and care system through the population health model. Register -
Content ArticleThe analysis finds that 19 of the 20 health conditions studied are projected to increase in prevalence, including a rise of more than 30% in the number of people living with conditions such as cancer, diabetes and kidney disease. Overall, the number of people living with major disease is set to increase from almost 1 in 6 of the adult population in 2019, to nearly 1 in 5 by 2040, with significant implications for the NHS, other public services and the public finances. The challenges of improving care for an ageing population and enabling people to live independent lives for longer are not unique to England, with countries across the globe facing similar pressures on their health services. However, with the NHS already under unprecedented strain, the findings point to big changes in how care should be delivered in future. Much of the projected growth in illness relates to conditions such as anxiety and depression, chronic pain and diabetes, which are predominantly managed outside hospitals in primary care and the community. This reinforces the need for investment in general practice and community-based services, focusing on prevention and early intervention to reduce the impact of illness and improve the quality of people’s lives. The analysis finds that 80% of the projected increase in major illness (2 million people) will be among people aged 70 and over, with the remaining 20% (500,000 people) among the working-age population (20-69 years old). It also projects that improvements in some of the main causes of poor health, such as fewer people smoking and lower cholesterol rates, will be offset by the impact of obesity as many people who have been obese for long periods of their lives reach old age. The report warns that there is no silver bullet to reduce the growth in people living with major illness and that supporting people to live well with illness will increasingly be an essential function of health care and other services in the future. Its findings underline the need for a long-term plan to reform, modernise and invest in the NHS alongside a bold, new approach that invests in the nation’s health and wellbeing.
-
Content Article
-
Content Article
Health inequalities newsletters by Hemant Patel
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Health inequalities
-
Content Article
-
News Article
Ringfence 10% of UK health spending for preventive measures, report urges
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Governments should set aside 10% of health spending for preventive and public measures such as cycle lanes and anti-obesity strategies, a thinktank has said, warning that “political short-termism” over health is making the UK increasingly ill and unequal. The report by the Tony Blair Institute argues that a centralised NHS model “almost entirely focused on treating sickness” rather than on wider objectives is not only harming people’s health but hampering the economy, with more than 2.5 million people out of the labour market because of long-term ailments. The report emphasises the human cost as well, noting that the effect of diseases caused or exacerbated by lifestyle means UK life expectancy is stagnating, while men living in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea can now expect to live 27 years longer than their peers in Blackpool, Lancashire. Along with a coherent central plan, the authors stressed the need for effective localism, with accountable regional bodies working to improve public health, rather than “the existing top-down and reactive approach of the NHS”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 March 2023 -
Content Article
-
EventDeveloping a culture of continuous improvement is an imperative as healthcare organisations face unprecedented challenges and strive for sustainability. Join an executive leadership panel for a virtual roundtable discussion and learn about crucial lessons from Warwick Business School's recently published independent study of the NHS-VMI partnership. The research reveals the effectiveness of applying a systems approach to learning and improvement across five NHS trusts in partnership with NHS Improvement. It will explore crucial lessons for leaders as they work to improve patient outcomes, population health, access, equity, and the overall patient experience, even during disruptions like the Covid pandemic. This includes: Leadership models, behaviours and practices that were observed to be essential components of leading change in organisations. How to enable “partnership” ways of working through practices and mechanisms that foster and maintain collaborative ways of working. Cultural elements necessary for the successful adoption of an organisation-wide improvement programme. Register
-
EventuntilFrom 1 July 2022, integrated care systems (ICSs) will be established as statutory bodies in all parts of England, with place-based partnerships also taking on a central role in the new system. As ICSs begin the next stage of development, how can all involved ensure they are truly different to what has come before and have a meaningful impact? The King's Fund is running this virtual conference across four half-days, from 23–26 May, which will celebrate the progress that ICSs have made so far. Sharing the vision and journey of established ICSs, this conference will explore how place-based partnerships, newly established relationships and systems leadership can leverage opportunities, and navigate the risks and challenges, to deliver a step change in health and wellbeing outcomes in population health. Register
-
EventuntilFrom 1 July 2022, integrated care systems (ICSs) will be established as statutory bodies in all parts of England, with place-based partnerships also taking on a central role in the new system. As ICSs begin the next stage of development, how can all involved ensure they are truly different to what has come before and have a meaningful impact? The King's Fund are running this virtual conference across four half-days, from 23–26 May, which will celebrate the progress that ICSs have made so far. Sharing the vision and journey of established ICSs, this conference will explore how place-based partnerships, newly established relationships and systems leadership can leverage opportunities, and navigate the risks and challenges, to deliver a step change in health and wellbeing outcomes in population health. Register
-
EventuntilAt a time when deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke are markedly declining, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths from heart failure are increasing. The management of this devastating long-term condition is estimated to account for 2% of the entire NHS budget, with 70% of this spent on acute hospital admissions. Both prevalence and incidence of heart failure increase steeply with increasing age and with deprivation but outcomes for patients are improved with earlier diagnosis and treatment. Join the King's Fund for this free online event, where we will consider how heart failure is a growing population health problem and the solutions to help overcome the challenges this condition presents. These include preventing the underlying causes of heart failure, as well as identifying risk factors for the condition, such as access to diagnosis, particularly for older people and those from more deprived communities. Register
-
Content Article
-
News Article
Coronavirus: Doctors spell out how to exit England's lockdown
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Lifting lockdown must be handled better this time round to avoid a surge in Covid that could overwhelm the NHS, doctors say. The British Medical Association has published a blueprint for how it thinks England should proceed with any easing. It includes replacing the "rule of six" with a two-households restriction to reduce social mixing and banning travel between different local lockdown tiers. Government has yet to say if or exactly how England will exit on 2 December. It will decide next week, based on whether cases have fallen enough and how much strain hospitals are under. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 November 2020 -
News ArticleThe mutated strain of coronavirus from Danish mink could have “grave consequences”, Matt Hancock warned today. The Health Secretary said the new variant was a “significant development”. And he told MPs the new form of the virus “did not fully respond to Covid-19 antibodies” - hinting it might not respond in the same way to a vaccine. The UK banned travel and freight from Denmark on Saturday, going further than the current 14-day quarantine system. Those who had already passed from Denmark to Britain in the previous 14 days must isolate for two weeks. Updating the House of Commons, Mr Hancock said: “We’ve been monitoring the spread of coronavirus in European mink farms for some time, especially the major countries for mink farming like Denmark, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands. “On Thursday evening last I was alerted to a significant development in Denmark of a new evidence that the virus had spread back from mink to humans in a variant form that did not fully respond to Covid-19 antibodies. “Although the chance of this variant becoming widespread is low, the consequences should that happen would be grave.” Read full story Source: The Mirror, 10 November 2020
-
News ArticleThe social restrictions imposed upon our lives because of coronavirus have taken a toll on our emotions, finances, and our waistlines, but there may yet be a silver-lining: a reduction in cases of other infectious diseases. From the common cold to chickenpox, there has been a substantial drop in the number of infections being reported to GPs, despite children returning to school – and that looks set to continue as winter approaches and lockdown restrictions tighten across the country. According to the latest GP surveillance data for England there were 1.5 cases of common cold for every 100,000 people during the week ending 6 October – compared to 92.5 cases reported during the same week last year. The rate of other non-Covid respiratory illnesses was also lower, at 131 for every 100,000 people, compared to 303 last year. Influenza-like illness is also down, at 131 cases for every 100,000 people, versus 303 cases in 2019. Although there has been in increase since the start of the school term, for all of these illnesses, infection rates remain below expected seasonal levels for this time of year, the report by the Royal College of General Practitioners’ research and surveillance centre said. Equivalent data was not immediately accessible for Wales and Scotland. GP consultations for other infectious diseases like strep throat, tonsillitis and impetigo, as well as infectious intestinal diseases like norovirus are also well below the five-year average – and have been since late March – the report suggests. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 October 2020
-
News ArticleFor the first time, a new linked health data resource covering 54.4 million people – over 96% of the English population – is now available for researchers from across the UK to collaborate in NHS Digital’s secure research environment. This resource will enable vital research to take place into COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease, with the aim of improving treatments and care for patients. This work has been led by the CVD-COVID-UK consortium in partnership with NHS Digital. The new resource links health data from GP records, hospital data, death records, COVID-19 laboratory test data and data on medications dispensed from pharmacies, and is accessible to CVD-COVID-UK consortium researchers in NHS Digital’s Trusted Research Environment (TRE) Service for England. The CVD-COVID-UK consortium is a collaborative group of more than 130 members across 40 institutions working to understand the relationship between COVID-19 and cardiovascular diseases. The consortium is managed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Data Science Centre, led by Health Data Research UK. The ability to link different types of health data from almost the entire population of England provides a more complete and accurate picture of the impact of COVID-19 on patients with diseases of the heart and circulation than has been possible before now. It will also provide the data to understand whether patients with COVID-19 are more likely to go on to develop diseases of the heart and circulation, such as heart attack and stroke. Read full story Source: HDRUK, 24 February 2021
-
News ArticleCases of coronavirus in England are doubling every seven to eight days, research has revealed in the latest figures to show a resurgence of COVID-19. The study, known as React-1, is a population surveillance study that began in May and uses swabs from about 120,000 to 160,000 randomly selected people in England across 315 local authority areas each month to track the spread of coronavirus using PCR analysis – the “have you got it now” test. “The prevalence of the virus in the population is increasing. We found evidence that it has been accelerating at the end of August and beginning of September,” said Steven Riley, professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College London and a co-author of the work. The findings came as, elsewhere, the latest R figure for the UK was reported to be between 1.0 and 1.2, with the number of new infections somewhere between shrinking by 1% and growing by 3% every day. Previous rounds of the study revealed a falling prevalence of COVID-19, even as lockdown restrictions were eased: according to data for the period 19 June to 8 July, the prevalence of Covid in the general population was low, and halving every eight to nine days. However, the results from the fourth round of the survey suggest that is no longer the case. While the latest findings from the React study have yet to be peer-reviewed, researchers say out of more than 150,000 swabs collected between 22 August and 7 September, 136 tested positive for coronavirus, suggesting 13 people out of every 10,000 in the general population had COVID-19. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 September 2020
-
News ArticleThe emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including drug-resistant bacteria, or “superbugs”, pose far greater risks to human health than Covid-19, threatening to put modern medicine “back into the dark ages”, an Australian scientist has warned, ahead of a three-year study into drug-resistant bacteria in Fiji. “If you thought Covid was bad, you don’t want anti-microbial resistance,” Dr Paul De Barro, biosecurity research director at Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, told The Guardian. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say it’s the biggest human health threat, bar none. Covid is not anywhere near the potential impact of AMR. We would go back into the dark ages of health.” WHO warns overuse of antibiotics for COVID-19 will cause more deaths While AMR is an emerging public health threat across the globe, in the Pacific, where the risk of the problem is acute, drug-resistant bacteria could stretch the region’s fragile health systems beyond breaking point. An article in the BMJ Global Health journal reported there was little official health data – and low levels of public knowledge - around antimicrobial resistance in the Pacific, and that high rates of infectious disease and antibiotic prescription were driving up risks. “A challenge for Pacific island countries and territories is trying to curtail antimicrobial excess, without jeopardising antimicrobial access for those who need them,” the paper argued. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 September 2020
-
News Article
Coronavirus: UK must prepare for second virus wave says health leaders
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Health leaders are calling for an urgent review to determine whether the UK is properly prepared for the "real risk" of a second wave of coronavirus. In an open letter published in the BMJ, ministers were warned that urgent action would be needed to prevent further loss of life. The presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Nursing, Physicians, and GPs all signed the letter. It comes after Boris Johnson announced sweeping changes to England's lockdown. Following the prime minister's announcement, health leaders called for a "rapid and forward-looking assessment" of how prepared the UK would be for a new outbreak of the virus. "While the future shape of the pandemic in the UK is hard to predict, the available evidence indicates that local flare-ups are increasingly likely and a second wave a real risk," they wrote in the letter. "Many elements of the infrastructure needed to contain the virus are beginning to be put in place, but substantial challenges remain." The authors of the letter, also signed by the chair of the British Medical Association, urged ministers to set up a cross-party group with a "constructive, non-partisan, four nations approach", tasked with developing practical recommendations. "The review should not be about looking back or attributing blame," they said, and instead should focus on "areas of weakness where action is needed urgently to prevent further loss of life and restore the economy as fully and as quickly as possible". Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 June 2020 -
News Article
Second more deadly wave of coronavirus 'to hit Europe this winter'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
European countries should brace themselves for a deadly second wave of coronavirus infections because the pandemic is not over, the World Health Organization’s top official in Europe has said. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Hans Kluge, director for the WHO European region, delivered a stark warning to countries beginning to ease their lockdown restrictions, saying that now is the "time for preparation, not celebration". Dr Kluge stressed that, as the number of cases of COVID-19 in countries such as the UK, France and Italy was beginning to fall, it did not mean the pandemic was coming to an end. The epicentre of the European outbreak is now in the east, with the number of cases rising in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, he warned. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 20 May 2020 -
News Article
Coronavirus death rates more than double in more deprived areas, figures show
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Death rates from coronavirus in the most deprived parts of England are more than double than in less deprived areas, according to new figures that show London is the worst-hit part of the country. The mortality rate for the most deprived areas for March and early April was 55.1 deaths per 100,000 population – compared with 25.3 deaths per 100,000 in the least deprived areas, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The statistics show London has by far the highest mortality rate, with 85.7 deaths per 100,000 persons. This was found to be “statistically significantly higher” than any other region – almost double the next highest rate. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 May 2020 -
News Article
Coronavirus disproportionately affecting BAME communities in UK, new figures show
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than 16% of people who had tested positive for coronavirus when they died were from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, new data shows. On Monday, NHS England released data showing the ethnic breakdown of people who have died with coronavirus for the first time. The statistics come days after a review was announced to examine what appears to be a disproportionate number of BAME people who have been affected by Covid-19. Last week Downing Street confirmed the NHS and Public Health England will lead the review of evidence, following pressure on ministers to launch an investigation. Discussing the review, Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said ethnicity is "less clear" than three others factors in determining who is most at risk from coronavirus. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 April 2020 -
News Article
Why is coronavirus killing so many more people in the UK than in Ireland?
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
In March, while the UK delayed, Ireland acted. For many this may prove to have been the difference between life and death. The choices our governments have made in the last month have profoundly shaped what risks we, as citizens, are exposed to during the course of this pandemic. Those choices have, to a large extent, determined how many of us will die. At the time of writing, 365 people have died in Ireland of COVID-19 and 11,329 have died in the UK. Adjusted for population, there have been 7.4 deaths in Ireland for every 100,000 people. In the UK, there have been 17 deaths per 100,000. In other words, people are dying of coronavirus in the UK at more than twice the rate they are dying in Ireland. In her article, Elaine Doyle explores why this might be. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 April 2020 -
News Article
Swedish PM warned over 'Russian roulette-style' Covid-19 strategy
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Criticism is mounting in Sweden of the government’s approach to Covid-19, with academics warning that its strategy of building broad immunity while protecting at-risk groups – similar to that initially adopted by the UK – amounted to “Russian roulette” and could end in disaster. The prime minister, Stefan Löfven, on Sunday night called on all Swedes to accept individual responsibility in stopping the rapid spread of the virus as the number of patients in intensive care in Stockholm continued to rise sharply. Read full story Source: 23 March 2020, The Guardian
