Health Management and Policy Alert

The Health and Care Act: six key questions

The King's Fund -
The Health and Care Act, which introduces significant reforms to the organisation and delivery of health and care services received Royal Assent in April 2022. In this long read, The King's Fund explains what the changes brought in by the Act mean in practice.

• Long read

Strategies to reduce inequalities in access to planned hospital procedures

Midlands Decision Support Network -
This report follows on from a previous publication which described how people living in more deprived areas have poorer access to planned hospital care than their more affluent counterparts. This report aims to provide practical support for those keen to address the issues. It looks at how much additional care, and of what type, would be required to ‘level-up’ access to planned hospital procedures. It also looks at the interventions that exist that might help reduce inequities.

• Report
• Midlands Decisions Support Network - publications

The power of youth volunteering: learning from the Pears #iwill Fund Network

Institute for Voluntary Action Research -
Since 2018, 32 NHS Trusts and their respective charities have been welcoming young volunteers into their hospitals. Funded through the Pears #i will Fund, these Trusts joined a network to share, support and reflect during the course of their funding. This report shares insight across participating NHS Trusts to develop youth volunteering programmes and explores the meaningful contribution and impact of young volunteers. It includes practical advice on how to embed and sustain youth volunteering programmes that would be useful for both health and voluntary sectors.

• Report
• Institute for Voluntary Action Research - publications

British Medical Association Covid review

British Medical Association (BMA) -
The BMA have undertaken a review into the UK Government’s handling of the pandemic and its impact on the NHS, the health of the population, and doctors. These reports conclude that the UK Government failed in its duty of care to protect doctors and the wider healthcare workforce from avoidable harm and suffering in its management of the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Report 1: protection
• Report 2: impact
• BMA - press release

Medical emergencies in eating disorders: guidance on recognition and management

Royal College of Psychiatrists -
This report finds that signs that someone with an eating disorder is dangerously ill are often missed by healthcare professionals due to lack of guidance and training. The research finds that hospital admissions for eating disorders have increased by 84 per cent in the last five years reaching a total of 24,268 admissions. Children and young people with eating disorders are the worst affected with a rise of 90 per cent in the five-year period. This guidance is aimed at frontline staff so that people with eating disorders needing urgent care can be identified and treated earlier.

• Guidance
• Appendices
• Royal College of Psychiatrists - press release

Impact of Covid-19 on fertility treatment 2020

Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) - 

This report looks at changes in UK fertility treatment during the Covid-19 pandemic, including treatment numbers, funding, and donation. The report reveals that NHS-funded IVF treatments fell by seven per cent across the UK (35 per cent, 2019 to 28 per cent, 2020), with almost 26,000 patients over 35 receiving IVF treatments; a group prioritised by clinics as the chance of having a baby following fertility treatment decreases with age. The HFEA say this latest data confirms that fewer patients experienced delays during the pandemic than initially feared. This actually shows, a very small drop in treatments given the far-reaching impact of the pandemic across healthcare.

• Report
• Press release

Tackling antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024: addendum to the UK's 5-year national action plan

Department of Health and Social Care - 

This policy paper sets out changes to the commitments in Tackling antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024: the UK’s five-year national action plan, in its third year of delivery. The changes reflect lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic and progress that has already been made.

• Policy paper
• More detail

Devolve to evolve? The future of specialised services within integrated care

Policy Exchange - 

Specialised services support people with rare and complex conditions. The allocation for specialised services has grown by 50 per cent in eight years (from £13bn in 2013 to £20bn by 2020/21. There are proposals to delegate responsibility for commissioning at least half of these services from the national level to 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) across the NHS in England. This report evaluates these proposals and sets out a series of recommendations the authors would like to see taken forward.

• Report
• More detail

A picture of health? Bridging the gap between physical and mental healthcare in adult mental health inpatient settings

National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) - 

This report reviews the quality of physical healthcare provided to adults in mental health inpatient settings. Based on data from patients aged 18+ admitted to a mental health inpatient setting for more than one week from 1 November 2018 to 31 October 2019, the report found that a detailed physical health assessment was not undertaken appropriately for 28 out of 126 (22.2 per cent) patients, and physical health conditions were not included in the initial clerking for 29 out of 150 (19.3 per cent) patients. As such, it suggests that a physical healthcare plan should be developed when patients are admitted to a mental health inpatient setting.

• Report
• More detail

Putting patients first: championing good practice in combatting digital health inequalities

Patient Coalition for AI, Data and Digital Tech in Health - 

This report focuses on digital health inequalities and the impact that digital exclusion is having on health in the UK. It highlights different reasons for disparities in a person’s ability to access and use digital health technology and provides insights into the severity of the UK’s digital inequalities. The report also looks at four case studies demonstrating unique ways to combat digital health inequalities and improve access, and use of digital health technology for patients.

• Report
• More detail

What are the implications of policies increasing transparency of prices paid for pharmaceuticals? A primer for understanding the policy perspective in light of the empirical evidence

European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies - 

Policy action on net price transparency (NPT) for pharmaceuticals – the public disclosure of prices paid to manufacturers – is not straightforward. Any movement towards NPT requires a re-examination of the established trade-offs in pharmaceutical policy in Europe and worldwide. This policy brief focuses on the potential effects of increasing net price transparency (NPT), meaning the transparency of prices paid to pharmaceutical manufacturers as a result of pricing or reimbursement policies.

• Briefing
• More detail

The impact of dementia on women: how women are disproportionately affected across their lives and what needs to change.

Alzheimer's Research UK - 

Dementia became the leading cause of death for UK women in 2011. Two in three people with dementia (65 per cent) are women, and longer life expectancy alone does not explain this disparity. Women are also more likely to care for a loved one with dementia – making up around two thirds of unpaid carers. Yet across medical research, data from women is too often missing. And in the lab, female dementia researchers are less likely to move into senior roles than men. This report calls for action to tackle dementia’s disproportionate impact on women and to ensure women can make a full contribution to research, both as participants and as researchers.

• Report
• More detail

Improving engagement and communications for ambulance service staff

NHS Employers - 

Due to the large numbers of employees who aren’t office based and are offsite for most of their working hours, Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) wanted to improve the ways they could communicate and engage with all staff, including those more dispersed. Through different approaches, YAS developed three schemes: appointed a number of employees as cultural ambassadors; procured and implemented an app called ‘Simply Do Ideas’; and established a range of staff equality networks with the aim of making sure staff from under-represented groups also had their voices heard.

• Case study

The government’s response to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee’s ninth report of session 2021-22, 'Clearing the backlog caused by the pandemic'

Department of Health and Social Care -
This report sets out how the government is working with its arm’s length bodies to help the NHS clear the waiting list for elective care.

• Report
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

Supporting residents, addressing inequalities

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) -
This joint report published by ASH and the Housing Learning and Improvement Network, sets out the case and opportunities for addressing smoking in social housing. It outlines the case for reducing rates of smoking in the social housing sector as part of social landlords’ health and wellbeing activity and aims to equip the social housing and public health sectors with the information required to collaboratively progress action on smoking and improve the support available to residents who smoke. It also makes recommendations to central government to better support local action on this issue.

• Report
• ASH - publications