Knowledge @lert for Monday 28th April

April 28, 2014 Daily News

Policy paper: Helping people live well for longer

This document will help people understand how the national system as a whole is supporting local action to help people live well for longer.

It includes actions already taken in prevention, early diagnosis and treatment.It focuses on the 5 big killers:

  • cancer
  • stroke
  • heart disease
  • lung disease
  • liver diseases

It includes examples of good practice and help for local commissioning and service delivery.

Reducing harm to patients – Health Foundation Briefing

Looks at the success at  the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle and  outlines the factors that have contributed to their success, and how a similar approach has been used in the UK.  Key findings are:
  • As demonstrated by Virginia Mason in the US, and some inspiring examples in the UK, the ambition to reduce harm must be matched by the ingredients that help to deliver sustainable improvements in safety.
  • These ingredients include a stable and dedicated leadership team, an explicit and agreed vision for improvement, a systematic approach to engaging staff and developing their skills, and a commitment to the incremental improvement of quality.
  • We set out five questions that organisations should ask themselves to help make the ambition to reduce avoidable harm a reality.

Redirecting Innovation in U.S. Health Care Options to Decrease Spending and Increase Value – Rand Corporation

New medical technologies are a leading driver of U.S. health care spending. This report identifies promising policy options to change which medical technologies are created, with two related policy goals:
  1. Reduce total health care spending with the smallest possible loss of health benefits,
  2. ensure that new medical products that increase spending are accompanied by health benefits that are worth the spending increases.

Additional Item

Health-related quality of life and socioeconomic status: inequalities among adults with a chronic disease – Health and Quality of Life Outcomes Article

Finds low socioeconomic status (SES) groups seem to be faced with a double burden: first, increased levels of health impairments and, second, lower levels of valuated health-related quality of life 

(HRQL) once health is impaired. These associations should be analysed and discussed in their own right, based on interdisciplinary co-operation. Social epidemiologists could include measures of HRQL in their studies more often, for example, and health economists could consider assessing whether recommendations based on HRQL scales might include a social bias.

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2014, 12:58 doi:10.1186/1477-7525-12-58

BMJ Quality & Safety: a collection of key articles

This special collection reflects the depth and breadth of content from BMJ Quality & Safety, which encourages innovation and creative thinking to improve the quality of health care and the science of improvement.

Read the articles here.

Updated pay award information


NHS Employers has issued the following documentation in relation to this year’s pay awards:
Updated FAQs on the NHS pay award for 2014/2015 and 2015/16 – clarifies question 4 (part-time workers) and question 7 (redundancy) and adds additional questions, q8 (sick pay) and q9 (maternity)
Updated Agenda for Change payscales poster – includes details of the payments for Agenda for Change staff who were at the top pay point in their pay band on or before 31 March 2014, who are eligible for a non-consolidated increase of 1 per cent, payable in monthly instalments, with effect from 1 April 2014 up to 31 March 2015.

Knowledge @lert for Friday 25th April

Knowledge @lert for Tuesday 29th April