With thanks to our colleagues from Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust please find the latest bulletin attached. Some articles are freely accessible, others require an Open Athens account. For support accessing any of the articles, please contact academic.library@lscft.nhs.uk
Category: Health Policy
British Medical Association Report
The country is getting sicker: The urgent need to address growing health inequalities and protect our health in the face of an economic crisis.
This report contains anonymous testimonials from doctors, patients,
and carers across the UK about their experiences of a country that is
getting sicker in the face of an economic crisis.
Read the report here.
Resource of the Month
The Knowledge and Library Hub
The Knowledge and Library Hub connects NHS staff to high quality knowledge
and evidence resources all in one place. Full access is free with your Open
Athens credentials.
The Knowledge and Library Hub includes:
- Journals, books and databases
- Clinical decision making resources including NICE guidelines and BMJ Best Practice
- Policy and management information and research literature
- Resources purchased nationally and locally
- One-click links to full-text, request a copy or contact an NHS library
If you do not already have an Open Athens account, you can complete your own registration here: https://openathens.nice.org.uk/ or get in touch with the library for support: academic.library@lscft.nhs.uk
Please feel free to download our resource of the month poster and share with your team or within your department.
Covid 19
Current awareness updates
Interim Clinical Commissioning Policy: Neutralising monoclonal antibodies and intravenous antivirals in the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalised patients.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2021.
[This rapid policy statement from 24th December outlines the eligibility criteria for the use of casirivimab with imdevimab or sotrovimab for patients hospitalised with COVID-19, and those with hospital onset COVID-19.]
The European clinical research response to optimise treatment of patients with COVID-19: lessons learned, future perspective, and recommendations.
Goossens H. The Lancet Infectious Diseases 2021;:doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00705-2.
[We discuss how the clinical research community responded to the pandemic in Europe, what lessons were learned, and provide recommendations for future clinical research response during pandemics. We focused on two platform trials: RECOVERY and REMAP-CAP.]
Remote general practitioner consultations during COVID-19.
Green MA. The Lancet Digital Health 2022;4(1):E7.
[[Letter.] Advances in digital technology had already stimulated debate on consultation methods; despite offering convenience for some patients, there were concerns about widening inequalities for others. Given that the pandemic offered a natural experiment to assess the potential implications of remote consultations, we analysed data from NHS Digital to better understand these implications. Our analyses showed that any suggestion that GPs were not seeing patients in person was not true.]
Delivering outpatient virtual clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic: early evaluation of clinicians’ experiences.[Abstract]
Vas V. BMJ Open Quality 2022;11(1):doi: 10.1136/bmjoq-2020-001313.
[Conclusions: In response to the pandemic, outpatient services across the trust were rapidly redesigned and virtual clinics implemented. As a result, services have been able to sustain some level of service delivery. However, clinicians have identified challenges in delivering this model of care and highlighted enablers needed to sustaining the delivery of virtual clinics longer term, such as patient access to diagnostic tests and investigations closer to home.]
CG Report 6: Effects of COVID-19 In Care Homes: A Mixed Methods Review.
Collateral Global; 2021.
[The report, using national datasets for 25 countries on mortality, provides an up-to-date review of global effects of COVID-19 pandemic in care homes, assessing care home mortality by country, how the deaths compared with previous periods, and how excess deaths may be explained.]
Regulation and use of confidential patient information for genomic and medical research during and post Covid-19.
PHG Foundation; 2021.
[At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the government in England introduced measures to enable the use of confidential patient information for Covid-19 purposes without consent or another form of approval that would normally be required. This report considers how these regulatory changes to the governance of confidential patient information have impacted genomic and medical research, and whether these changes should be integrated into the regulatory framework longer term.]
Frequently asked questions: Demonstrating Covid-19 and vaccination status.
House of Commons Library; 2021.
[This briefing sets out responses to FAQs about demonstrating Covid status (otherwise called Covid status certification or vaccine passports) and use of the NHS Covid Pass in England.]
Clearing the backlog caused by the pandemic: ninth report of Session 2021–22.
House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee; 2021.
[This report finds that elective recovery plans are threatened by pressure on emergency care with a record number of 999 calls and waiting times in emergency departments at record levels. It concludes that tackling the wider backlog caused by the pandemic is a major and ‘unquantifiable’ challenge. It calls for a broad national health and care recovery plan to include mental health, primary care, community care and social care as well as emergency care.]
Telephone survey two: PCNs and Covid-19.
PRUComm; 2021.
[The purpose of the telephone survey was to try to understand the role primary care networks (PCNs) had played in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on whether the pandemic had influenced and shaped the development and operation of PCNs and whether PCNs had worked collectively or as individual practices in their Covid-19 response. This short report comprises data collected between August and December 2020.]
Inequality and the Covid crisis in the United Kingdom.
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); 2022.
[IFS Working Paper W22/01. This report reviews the effects on the Covid-19 pandemic on inequalities in education, the labour market, household living standards, mental health and wealth in the UK.]
Effects of COVID-19 lockdown on eating disorders and obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis.[Abstract]
Sideli L. European Eating Disorders Review 2021;29(6):826-841.
[The majority of individuals with EDs and obesity reported symptomatic worsening during the lockdown. However, further longitudinal studies are needed to identify vulnerable groups, as well as the long-term consequences of COVID-19.]
Covid 19
Current awareness updates
Fairer foundations: How has the pandemic affected young people’s mental health? Infographic
The Health Foundation; 2021.
[This infographic highlights the unequal mental health effects of the pandemic among young people. Young people’s lives have been significantly impacted by the pandemic – disrupted schooling, lost employment and not being able to see friends. But the effects of the crisis have not been the same for everyone, including a divergence of mental health experiences.]
Coronavirus and depression in adults, Great Britain: January to March 2021.
Office for National Statistics (ONS); 2021.
[Analysis of the proportion of the British adult population experiencing some form of depression in early 2021, by age, sex and other characteristics. Includes comparisons with 2020 and pre-pandemic estimates.]
Care pathway and prioritization of rapid testing for COVID-19 in UK hospitals: a qualitative evaluation.[Abstract]
Hicks T. BMC Health Services Research 2021;21(1):532.
[This study sought to understand the care pathways in place in UK NHS hospitals during the first wave (March-July 2020) for identification of patients with COVID-19 and to learn lessons to inform optimal testing strategies within the COVID-19 National Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Platform (CONDOR). During the winter months, priority for provision of rapid testing at admission should be given to hospitals with limited access to laboratory services and single room availability.]
Adult social care and COVID-19 after the first wave: assessing the policy response in England: Our analysis of the national government policy response for social care between June 2020 and March 2021.
The Health Foundation; 2021.
[In this briefing, the Health Foundation analyse policies to support adult social care during the height of the second wave of the pandemic in January and February 2021, and in the months leading up to it. We provide a narrative summary of central government policies related to adult social care in different areas, such as policies on testing and support for the workforce. We also provide a summary of the latest publicly available data on the impacts of COVID-19 on adult social care.]
Happy to help: the welfare effects of a nationwide micro-volunteering programme.
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); 2021.
[This paper estimates the wellbeing benefits from volunteering for England’s NHS Volunteer Responders programme, which was set up in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It found that active volunteers report significantly higher life satisfaction, feelings of worthwhileness, social connectedness, and belonging to their local communities. A social welfare analysis shows that the benefits of the programme were at least 140 times greater than its costs.]
Coronavirus Act report: May 2021.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2021.
[The seventh two-monthly report on which powers in the Coronavirus Act 2020 are currently active.]
Vivaldi study: results.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2021.
[Results for the Vivaldi study for antibody and cellular immune responses to coronavirus (COVID-19) in approximately 340 care homes.]
Deaths involving COVID-19 in the care sector, England and Wales: deaths registered between week ending 20 March 2020 and week ending 2 April 2021.
Office for National Statistics (ONS); 2021.
[Provisional figures on deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), an investigation into wave 1 versus wave 2 within the care sector, in England and Wales.]
European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
How to enhance the integration of primary care and public health? Approaches, facilitating factors and policy option
This policy brief explores how primary care and public health can be brought together to improve the health of patients and populations. It describes the types of initiatives that have been undertaken; provides examples of such initiatives in Europe and beyond; and summarises the factors that can help to enhance or hinder the integration of primary care and public health.
Wellbeing report
Wellbeing evidence at the heart of policy
In 2015 the What Works Centre for Wellbeing became part of the What Works Network across the UK in the academic, charity, public, and private sectors. The network has created approaches to understand, measure and improve wellbeing in a range of contexts. This report updates the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy with evidence-informed priority policy areas. It outlines policy and practice changes across the UK, and what that means for government, business and civil society in post-Brexit Britain. The report sets out: what wellbeing impacts look like in different contexts; what works to improve wellbeing; and how to use a wellbeing lens to create more relevant, effective policy.
Read the report here
A descriptive analysis of health care use by high cost, high need patients in England
The Health Foundation, November 2019
The Health Foundation report exploring health care use by the top 5 per cent of users of primary and secondary care services by cost.
• Despite the increasing financial pressure on the NHS over the past decades, there has been little research to understand the distribution and concentration of health care costs across the population.
• This paper explores for the first time the distribution of both primary and secondary health care costs in England, including GP-prescribed drug cost. Identifying high-cost, high-need patients and examining the way in which they use health care services might help to design initiatives to reduce costs or to improve efficiency.
Click here to view the full report.
Children and young people’s mental health: prevention evidence: Summary report and outputs from a review of evidence for universal approaches to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Public Health England, October 2019
This series of reports summarises the evidence for the effectiveness of universal approaches to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. The documents are intended for strategic and operational leads, working on children and young people’s mental health. The report of the findings of a Special Interest Group summarises the approach, findings and recommendations.
Click here to access the reports.
Drugs policy: First Report of Session 2019–20: Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report
House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, October 2019
The United Kingdom has some of the highest drug death rates in Europe, particularly in Scotland. This Report shows how the rate of drug-related deaths has risen to the scale of a public health emergency. It recommends a radical change in approach to UK drugs policy, moving from the current criminal justice approach to a health approach, with responsibility for drugs policy moving from the Home Office to the Department of Health and Social Care suggesting a health focused and harm reduction approach would not only benefit those who are using drugs but reduce harm to and the costs for their wider communities.
Click here to view the full report.