Investigating and learning from deaths
The Care Quality Commission has launched a review of how NHS acute, community healthcare and mental health trusts investigate and learn from deaths.  The review will also assess whether opportunities to prevent deaths have been missed.  Following the Mazars report, the Government has asked the CQC to look at how NHS trusts across the country investigate deaths to find out whether similar problems can be found elsewhere.  It will look particularly closely at how trusts investigate and learn from deaths of people using learning disability or mental health services.

Partnering with users to improve the quality of healthcare – ESCR

• Research on improving people’s experience of healthcare suggests that work is needed to use experience data, not just for measurement but to stimulate local service improvement. Experience-based co-design uses video interviews with service users to engage staff in just such a change process.
• This report recommends that
  • Experience-based co-design (EBCD) of healthcare involving service users as partners with staff should be actively promoted nationally and locally, as an effective way to achieve person-centred improvement and cultural change in healthcare
  • ‘Trigger films’ of people talking about their experiences of services are a key part of the initiative. Existing, nationally produced trigger films have been shown to be a low-cost high impact resource.
  • Policymakers should consider funding and support for further trigger films to expand this free-to-use national resource.
  • National and local health organisations should raise awareness among NHS staff about the Healthtalk online resource on health experiences, and support development of new interview collections to cover areas not yet included in the Healthtalk archive.
  • Maintenance of The King’s Fund EBCD toolkit should be supported, alongside continued investment in The Point of Care Foundation codesign training programme for NHS staff and patient leaders.

Trusts borrow millions to pay for redundancies and beds – Health Service Journal
Papers released by the Department of Health show trusts have borrowed hundreds of millions of pounds to pay suppliers, make redundancies and increase bed capacity.

Delayed care transfers to continue for years, Stevens warns – Health Service Journal
Significant problems with discharging older patients from hospital are unlikely to abate in the coming years because of funding pressures on the NHS and councils, Simon Stevens has warned.

CQC orders hospital chief to improve A&E performance – Health Service Journal
PERFORMANCE: The Care Quality Commission has taken the unprecedented step of telling a chief executive they must improve their trust’s accident and emergency performance.

First teaching hospital rated outstanding – Health Service Journal
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust has been rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, becoming the first teaching hospital in the country to receive the regulator’s top rating.

Pioneering integrated care trust rated ‘requires improvement’ – Health Service Journal
Torbay and South Devon Foundation Trust, one of the first “integrated care organisations” in the country, has been rated requires improvement by the Care Quality Commission.

Air Accident Investigation chief set for top NHS role – Health Service Journal
The existing head of the UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch is set to become the chief investigator of the new NHS patient safety body, HSJ can reveal.

Kent trust struggles to staff new urgent care centre – Health Service Journal
A Kent trust is struggling to find GPs to staff a 24/7 urgent care centre which is being set up to replace its emergency unit in Canterbury.