Sustainability and transformation plans in the NHS. How are they being developed in practice?
Based on a series of interviews with senior NHS and local government leaders which took place throughout 2016, this report looks at how sustainability and transformation plans have been developed in four parts of the country.

The digital patient
The Nuffield Trust has published The digital patient: transforming primary care? This report reviews the evidence that exists on digital technology and its impact on patients in primary care and the NHS. It explores the impact of seven types of digital services offered by the NHS: wearables and monitoring technology; online triage tools; online sources of health information and advice, targeted interventions and peer support; online appointment booking and other transactional services; remote consultations; online access to records and care plans; and apps.

Intrapartum care for healthy women and babies
NICE has updated its clinical guideline Intrapartum care for healthy women and babies (CG190). This guideline covers the care of healthy women and their babies during labour and immediately after the birth.  NICE has reviewed the evidence on the effectiveness of midwife-led continuity models and other models of care and deleted a recommendation about team midwifery.

NHS performance
The King’s Fund has published How is the NHS performing? November 2016. This quarterly monitoring report combines publicly available data on selected NHS performance measures with views from NHS finance directors and clinical commissioning group finance leads. The report now also includes views from general practitioners and practice managers, and unpublished activity data.

HSJ roundup: (contact the library for further details on any of these HSJ articles)

• ‘Outstanding’ FT to close urgent care centres overnight
  One of the country’s major foundation trusts is temporarily reducing the opening hours of three of its urgent care centres to redeploy nursing staff to its specialist emergency care hospital over winter.
• Google and NHS sign ‘game changing’ deal 
  The NHS has deepened its relationship with Google after a leading hospital trust announced the most significant deal to date between the health service and the tech giant’s artificial intelligence arm.
• Trusts ‘downplaying security breaches’
  NHS Digital will relaunch a key part of the NHS’s data governance system, amid criticism that trusts are using the informaton governance toolkit to “game” their results by exploiting the current self-assessment system.
• Statistics authority intervenes over government NHS spending claims 
  The UK Statistics Authority will ask officials to “ensure clarity” when reporting on increases to NHS spending, in response to complaints about the government making misleading claims.
• Providers and CCGs consider merging back-office  
  The Black Country Partnership sustainability and transformation plan has said it is looking at options to integrate non-clinical support services across both commissioning and provider organisations.
• CCGs may bypass EU tendering rules  
  Clinical commissioning groups look set to take a contrasting approach to NHS England over new tendering rules – due to the potential administrative burden and a “ridiculous timescale” that would need to be met.
• Major acute trust admits ‘insufficient’ efforts to hit financial target 
  One of the largest acute trusts in the country is at risk of failing to achieve the £43m of savings it needs to achieve its financial target this year, its chief executive has told staff.

Bulletins

• NHS Workforce Bulletin 7 November 2016
• NHS Managers’ Bulletin 10 November 2016
• NHS Improvement Provider bulletin: 16 November

Statistics

• Overall Patient Experience Scores: 2016 Community Mental Health Survey update
• General Pharmaceutical Services – 2006/7 – 2015/16
• Complaints about acute trusts– Q1 and Q2 2016-17