Health Management and Policy Alert

Making maternity services safer: nurturing a positive culture

Royal College of Midwives -
According to this report, poor working cultures must be tackled if UK maternity services are to be made safer. It describes how a positive working environment is needed, where multi-disciplinary teams work and train together and are better equipped to deliver good quality, safe care for women and families.

• Report
• Royal College of Midwives - press release

Comparing smoking cessation to screening and brief intervention for alcohol in distributional cost effectiveness analysis to explore the sensitivity of results to socioeconomic inequalities characterised in model inputs

Centre for Health Economics -
This research found no discernible pattern relating the extent and direction of socioeconomic variation in model inputs to socioeconomic variation in model outputs. Differences in deprivation structure of the local population and other factors translate into different conclusions on the value for money of delivering the interventions locally compared to nationally.

• Research briefing
• Centre for Health Economics - publications

Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) engagement document: Integrated Care System (ICS) implementation

Department of Health and Social Care -
This document sets out The Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the Local Government Association’s expectations for the role of Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs) within Integrated Care Systems. It aims to support local authorities, Integrated Care Boards and other key stakeholders in considering what arrangements might work best in their area when laying the foundations for establishing ICPs.

• Guidance
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

The Health and Care Bill: six key questions

The King's Fund -
In this long read we explain what the changes proposed in the Health and Care Bill will mean in practice. We look at issues ranging from which people and organisations will hold power to the impact of integration on patients and the potential for privatisation.

• Long read
• The King's Fund - publications

Stoptober 2020: campaign evaluation

Public Health England -
Stoptober is an annual event to encourage smokers to quit for 28 days in October, with the aim of stopping smoking permanently. This report aims to measure the impact of Stoptober in 2020.

• Report
• Public Health England - publications

Health Profile for England: 2021

Public Health England -
The 2021 edition of the Health Profile for England provides aa overview of the health of people in England and updates indicators presented in previous reports. It also contains a summary of the wider impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on many aspects of health and health inequalities. In addition, the report makes comparisons with health in a selection of other countries (US, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland) where possible.

• Statistical report
• Public Health England - publications

Leading public services through Covid-19

National Leadership Centre -
The National Leadership Centre (NLC) supported the Government’s response to Covid-19 by acting as the conduit between Central Government and the NLC’s network of public service leaders. As part of this, the NLC ran a quantitative survey with public service leaders from March to June 2020. The NLC also commissioned Ipsos MORI to conduct qualitative research with their network, which ran from July 2020 to March 2021. This report brings together findings from both strands of research.

• Report
• National Leadership Centre - publications

Barriers to wellbeing: migration and vulnerability during the pandemic

Doctors of the World -
This report reveals that refugees, asylum seekers and migrants reported higher levels of bad health and inadequate housing during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as difficulties registering with a GP and accessing remote health care services, suggesting significant unmet health care needs.

• Report
• Doctors of the World - press release

National survey of malnutrition and nutritional care in adults

British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (BAPEN) - 
This report outlines the findings of a survey that aimed to take the temperature on the status of nutritional care across all health and social care settings in the UK. The survey found that 40 per cent of patients were at risk of malnutrition but also that the majority of patients had a nutritional care plan in place, particularly for those who were at medium or high-risk of malnutrition.

• Report
• Press release

Welfare facilities for healthcare staff

NHS Confederation - 
This guidance, developed by the NHS Staff Council’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing Partnership Group, aims to support NHS organisations to improve their provision of staff welfare facilities. It includes the case for improving and providing welfare facilities and the legal requirements for organisations to have suitable and sufficient facilities for staff. 

• Guidance

Health and Care Bill: combined impact assessments

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) - 
The Health and Care Bill was introduced to Parliament on 6 July 2021 and the legislation aims to build on work to make the health and care system more integrated and accountable. This collection of documents examines the costs, benefits, risks and mitigations of the proposed changes. 

• Impact assessments

The Canna model: assessing the impact of NHS Test and Trace on Covid-19 transmission

UK Health Security Agency - 

This report estimates the impact directly attributable to NHS Test and Trace by comparing to a counterfactual scenario which assumes that all individuals who tested with suspected coronavirus (Covid-19) symptoms would self-isolate without ever taking a test, together with their household contacts.

• Report
• More detail

Pressures on the NHS

Institute for Fiscal Studies - 

This analysis assesses how the government’s new funding settlement compares with the pressures facing the health service. The new funding will likely be sufficient to cover Covid-19-related pressures on the NHS over the next two years, 2022−23 and 2023−24. However, the government’s new plans imply little in the way of additional virus-related support after that point, suggesting that the newly announced funding might be insufficient to meet virus-related pressures in the medium term.

• Report
• Press release

Raising the levy: will the new health and social care tax work?

The King's Fund - 

In this blog, Richard Murray gives his take on the new health and social care levy and what's still needed to ensure the funding will deliver real change.

• Read it now

Public spending during the Covid-19 pandemic

House of Commons Library - 

This briefing looks at the very high level of UK public spending on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, including how the money was spent and where it came from.

• Briefing
• More detail