Creating supportive environments: tackling behaviours that undermine a culture of safety – Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
This report explores bullying and undermining within the medical workforce in the UK. It looks at current efforts to tackle problems and what further work is required.

New frameworks to increase integrated health and social care launched – NHE
A new framework to help local areas establish a single primary and acute care system (PACS) has been published by NHS England, as well as another for improving the lives of care home residents. Under a PACS, hospital, primary, community, mental health and social care services align their goals and incentives to improve the health and…

Integrated primary and acute care systems (PACS): describing the care model and the business model –  NHS England
This framework is for local health and care systems, organisations, communities and patients, wishing to develop and implement new ways of working. This framework document uses the learning from the nine PACS vanguards to support local health and care systems planning to implement a PACS model. It outlines the next steps required to set up the model – including the need to develop new contractual, funding and organisational form. It sets out three contractual options that will help make a phased transition towards a fully-fledged PACS – a single provider with a single contract for all local health and care services.

Unsafe discharge from hospital
The House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) has published Follow-up to Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) report on unsafe discharge from hospital.  The inquiry found that the discharge failures identified by the May 2016 PHSO report are not isolated incidents but examples of problems that patients, relatives and carers are experiencing more widely.  The committee identified a need for more data to be gathered on the scale and impact of these discharge failures.  It identified a lack of integration between health and social care is preventing seamless discharge processes, coordinated around the patient’s needs.

When it comes to discharge, timing is everything – Professor Martin J Vernon – NHS England
Professor Martin J Vernon discusses the importance of NHS England’s Quick Guide: Discharge to Assess and benefits for older, vulnerable people. I am really pleased to be writing about the publication of NHS England’s Quick Guide: Discharge to Assess which comes at a critical time for NHS hospitals. This new resource provides us with pragmatic […]

“Brexit means Brexit” but how will it impact the NHS? –  NHS European Office
This infographic from the NHS European Office explains some of the possible implications of Brexit on the NHS. It looks briefly at six possible areas of impact, including finance, workforce and research, and asks what should be the NHS’ main priorities as the UK prepares to leave the European Union.

Measuring standards and improving neonatal care
Following the publication of the ‘Neonatal audit programme 2016 annual report’,the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has published a leaflet Your baby’s care: measuring standards and improving neonatal care.  This leaflet for parents has been designed to help parents and clinicians to work together to achieve the best outcomes for preterm and sick babies who require care.  It is intended that readers will gain a fuller understanding of the audit measures used, the questions the National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP) asks and why it asks them, thereby helping parents to comprehend and confidently discuss aspects of their baby’s care.

What does the single oversight framework mean for trusts? – NHE
Miriam Deakin, head of policy at NHS Providers, considers what the newly proposed single oversight framework means for trusts and how they can make it work.N NHS Improvement (NHSI) closed its short consultation on a new single oversight framework (SOF) for all NHS providers in early August. In a context of unprecedented…

Improving the health of the public by 2040: optimising the research environment for a healthier, fairer future –  Academy of Medical Sciences
This report explores how to organise our research environment to generate and translate the evidence needed to underpin strategies to secure and improve the health of the public as a whole. It concludes that while public health research has provided fundamental insights into human health, there remains much we do not know about the complex array of interlinking factors that influence the health of the public, and about how to prevent and solve the many health challenges we face as a population.

Action on cardiovascular disease: getting serious about prevention – Public Health England (PHE)
This slide deck brings together PHE’s work in addressing cardiovascular disease, the second leading cause of premature death and ill health. It sets out the main programmes already underway and the next steps in tackling cardiovascular disease going forward. The publication is intended for those involved in the commissioning and provision of services for cardiovascular disease and its prevention.

Less than a third of trusts hitting revised A&E targets – Health Service Journal
Less than a third of trusts have achieved the new, lower accident and emergency targets for July, which they were set by regulators in the NHS “reset” document, HSJ analysis reveals.

NICE guidance and advice

Interventional procedures guidance

• IPG565  Miniature lens system implantation for advanced age-related macular degeneration

Technology appraisal guidance

• TA406    Crizotinib for untreated anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive advanced non-small-cell lung cancer
• TA407    Secukinumab for active ankylosing spondylitis after treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or TNF-alpha inhibitors
• TA408    Pegaspargase for treating acute lymphoblastic leukaemia
• TA409    Aflibercept for treating visual impairment caused by macular oedema after branch retinal vein occlusion
• TA410    Talimogene laherparepvec for treating unresectable metastatic melanoma
• TA411    Necitumumab for untreated advanced or metastatic squamous non-small-cell lung cancer
• TA412    Radium-223 dichloride for treating hormone-relapsed prostate cancer with bone metastases