Health Management and Policy Alert

Learning the lessons: the unequal impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: voices of people and communities

National Voices -
This report captures the findings from an engagement exercise held by National Voices about how communities and groups were affected differently by both the Covid-19 virus and the measures to control it. It finds that the pandemic response exacerbated existing, deep-rooted inequalities across the UK, and compounded the disadvantages experienced by people from minoritised communities, by disabled people and by people living with long term conditions.

• Report
• National Voices - news

Access denied?: socioeconomic inequalities in digital health services

Ada Lovelace Institute -
This report seeks to understand how people who have lived experience of poverty and ongoing health concerns are impacted by health inequalities when interacting with patient-facing digital health services. The findings suggest a need for policymakers, health care leaders, and digital health service designers and developers to reconsider how they use data and how they design and deploy digital health services.

• Report
• Ada Lovelace Institute - publications

Care Quality Commission review and assessment of local authority functions in relation to adult social care 2023 to 2024: grant determination

Department of Health and Social Care -
The new duty on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to review and assess local authorities’ delivery of their adult social care duties under part 1 of the Care Act 2014 commenced in April 2023. This guidance gives details and allocations of funding for local authorities in relation to the CQC assessment.

• Guidance
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

Adult social care and the NHS: two sides of the same coin

NHS Confederation -
This report provides an overview of total capacity and national trends across the health and care sector as well as the variation across the country. It focuses on demand for and provision of state-funded social care for older people as the largest group drawing on care and support but finds that fewer people are being supported by state-funded social care in England despite the increase in people aged 65 and over. However, the need for care and support is also increasing among both working-age adults and children.

• Report
• NHS Confederation - publications

The good childhood report 2023

Children's Society - 

In this year’s survey, nearly one-third of children aged 10 to 17 expressed unhappiness in at least one of ten areas of their lives. While 74 per cent were optimistic about their personal futures, less than 40 per cent felt positive about the future of their country and the world. Notably, 14.5 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with school, the highest among the surveyed aspects. Children worried about family finances reported higher overall unhappiness, particularly regarding their homes, money, possessions, and personal choices. Among future concerns, having enough money topped the list, followed by finding employment and academic success. In societal issues, rising prices and environmental concerns were prominent worries among the surveyed children.

• Report
• More detail

Frimley frailty community response service

NHS Confederation - 

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust set up a hospital at home and urgent community response service, to improve the quality of care for elderly frail patients and reduce unnecessary and lengthy hospital admissions.

• Case study

Care for our future: the roadmap to a sustainable future for adult social care

Care England -

This document from Care England (a registered charity and a representative body for small, medium and large providers of adult social care in England) sets out the sector’s priorities across three key themes – workforce, funding and integration. The roadmap issues a series of policy recommendations for the next government to implement within 100 days, two years and five years of entering office. The plan is backed by major representative groups from across the sector.

• Roadmap
• More detail

A vision for community pharmacy

Nuffield Trust -
The Nuffield Trust and The King's Fund were commissioned by Community Pharmacy England to develop a vision for the direction of community pharmacy and to describe the actions needed to turn that vision into reality. This report outlines that vision, warning that it cannot be delivered without changes to the law, as well as additional funding beyond what was announced in a recent pharmacy funding boost.

• Report
• Nuffield Trust - publications

Towards a unified vision of nursing and midwifery documentation

NHS England -
This guidance sets the direction for all nursing documentation across hospitals, community and nursing homes. It is intended to help organisations implement record systems and policies which support nurses to produce good documentation that supports and evidences professional decision making and care, while minimising time spent on producing those records.

• Guidance
• NHS England - publications

A community rehabilitation and reablement model

NHS England -
This guidance consists of best practice guidance that systems should consider in connection with their intermediate care and rehabilitation services and implement where appropriate locally and affordable within available budgets. The community rehabilitation model aims to increase capacity and access to high quality therapy-led rehabilitation assessments and interventions that are timely, safe and person-centred, for people discharged on intermediate care pathways from acute settings and virtual wards.

• Guidance
• NHS England - publications

Intermediate care framework for rehabilitation, reablement and recovery following hospital discharge

NHS England -
This framework consists of best practice guidance and a number of recommended actions that systems should consider in connection with their intermediate care services, and implement where appropriate locally and affordable within available budgets. It is focused on step-down intermediate care – time-limited, short-term health and/or social care provided to adults who need support after discharge from acute inpatient settings and virtual wards to help them rehabilitate, re-able and recover.

• Guidance
• NHS England - publications

Carenomics: unlocking the economic power of care

Future Social Care Coalition (FSSC) - 

This report from a cross party coalition including former health and care ministers, employers and unions, makes the economic case for investing in social care, setting out the benefits this investment would have to the wider economy. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, this report emphasises the substantial return on investment that social care could deliver. Potential benefits include improving employment chances for disabled people, reducing pressure on the NHS, reducing costs for employers, levelling up for poorer areas, and building a more purposeful economy.

• Report
• FSSC website 

How finance teams are helping to reduce health inequalities

Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) - 

This briefing explores the work that finance teams are doing to help reduce health inequalities. There are three main ways finance staff are supporting this important agenda: allocating resources differently to support specific population needs; aligning data sets, tackling variation and reducing inefficiency; and investing in targeted projects which focus on specific groups. The briefing looks at eight case studies from across the UK, considers lessons learned and explores and how other organisations and systems can draw on good practice. Finance teams can have a significant impact on patient access, outcomes and experience as well as value by supporting and pushing forward the health inequalities agenda.

• Briefing
• More detail

Local recruitment initiatives at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

NHS Employers - 

By creating working relationships with local partners and making connections across across the system North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC) has made itself more visible to its community which has helped to fill vacancies at the trust. NCIC has also worked with training providers to remove the barriers to entry-level applicants.

• Case study

Empowered, connected and respected: a vision for general practice at scale and primary care networks

NHS Confederation - 

This paper sets out the NHS Confederation's vision for at-scale general practice in the context of the three core principles of the Fuller stocktake: personalised care for those who need it most delivered through integrated neighbourhood teams, a joined-up approach to prevention and streamlined access.

• Paper
• More detail