Health care systems are not adapting to an ageing population with co-morbidities
People require co-ordinated care centred on them that are not fragmented
People are interested in their lives rather than health and care services, and it can be easy for
policy and policymakers to miss what matters most to ordinary people e.g. independence for older people
Policy ignores that most care is self care and people are drawn into acute services rather than treated where they want to be – at home.
Social care is under more strain than any other part of the system
Care needs to be co-ordinated around the whole persons needs particularly for older people, those with complex conditions and long term conditions.
A shift towards coordinated, person-centred care requires a fundamental shift in the way that health and care is delivered, and can’t be achieved within the existing fragmented system
Proposes a set of recommendations that will focus on helping people stay well, manage their conditions and
promote their independence; it suggests how incentives can be aligned across health and care organisations to encourage them to put people’s and encourages health and social care to work in partnership for their communities, without proposing expensive and distracting structural reorganisations.
Blog post that uses comparisons with the education sector to consider the prospects for franchising and hospital chains. It suggests the experience of the ‘turnaround’ teams in 2005/6 suggests the need for a ‘whole health economy approach’ alongside strong stakeholder engagement and performance management. It’s not obvious why a high-performing trust from another area would be best placed to do this.
CASE STUDY: It is a contractual obligation for individual trusts to monitor junior doctors’ hours every six months to make certain that they are compliant with the Junior Doctor Contract (known as New Deal) and to ensure that doctors’ pay is correct.
However, this process is carried out with variable success across the North West.
In response, Health Education North West’s Junior Doctor Advisory Team (JDAT) reviewed a selection of monitoring exercises across the North West from the past five years. The total number reviewed was 734, of which only 401 (55%) achieved a valid return rate.
CASE STUDY: Practice placement opportunities for pre-registration student nurses are changing due to the reconfiguration of healthcare organisations and the services that they provide.
As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to provide the variety of placement opportunities required to prepare students for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Yet there is a requirement by academic education institutions and NHS placement providers to ensure that students are fit for practice at the end of their three year education programme.
Chief Executive Jennifer Dixon tackles the difficult questions surrounding the extent of NHS funding shortfalls and the increasing drive toward greater efficiency. ‘There’s a mountain to climb in the next few years’ she says, but there’s lots that can be done, both nationally and at a local level too.
VIDEO: Dympna Cunnane, Organisation Development Consultant and Programme Director at London Business School, discusses her views on how healthcare leaders respond to the pressures of the job and their role in ensuring high quality, compassionate care for patients.
To mark the first anniversary of the report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, the Nuffield Trust took a first look at how hospitals have responded to the findings and recommendations contained in Robert Francis QC’s final report.
Nuffield Trust policy response that looks at options for development of the payment reform system in England. It recommends that any changes are targeted on where they are likely to have the greatest impact, and aligned with wider system changes. Finds that if the NHS is to improve the efficiency of the health system as a whole, it needs payment systems that cover the continuum of care and which create incentives for providing the ‘right care in the right setting’
This document sets out how Department of Health and NHS England will work together, setting out roles, responsibilities, governance and accountability arrangements.