Health Management and Policy Alert

28/02/06 - NHS Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme annual report 2005

This report, for clinicians, managers and users of the NHS and others interested in research, gives a brief outline of how the HTA programme works and the progress it has made in the past year. It includes information about the expanded role of the HTA programme in the new NHS R&D strategy, as well as details about the programme's new expert advisory panel on disease prevention.
(HTA - annual report)

28/02/06 - Public service agreement (PSA) : child obesity

Tackling child obesity : first steps examines the effectiveness of the mechanisms to deliver government PSA targets. The report is published jointly by National Audit Office, Audit Commission and Healthcare Commission. The incidence of childhood obesity grew from 9.6% in 1995 to 13.7% in 2003. Obesity now costs the NHS around £1 billion a year. The target is jointly owned by Department of Health, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Department for Education and Skills. The report recommends:

• greater clarity and direction from central Government: it is essential that the three departments work closely together to provide strong leadership;
• better definition of regional roles and responsibilities: Government Offices for the Regions could play a greater role in bringing together the various elements of the delivery chain;
• strengthening local partnerships: local structures and mechanisms, such as local strategic partnerships and children’s trusts, exist to promote joint working and have the potential to reduce the risk of duplication of activities by bringing together funding around agreed priorities;
• more support for front line staff: better information and training on roles and responsibilities and improved dissemination of advice and guidance.

(NAO - press release) DH press release

28/02/06 - Review of mental health nursing

This is a summary of responses to the consultation on the Chief Nursing Officer’s review of mental health nursing, published by the Department of Health in July 2005. The aim of the consultation was to gain a clearer understanding of the views as to how mental health nursing should best contribute to the care of service users in the future and to inform final recommendations to be made by the review. (DH - consultations)

27/02/06 - Evaluation of the Healthcare Commission

This paper sets out a high-level strategy for evaluating the impact of the Healthcare Commission’s activities over the next 12 to 18 months. A subsequent paper will cover other activities up to 2008. The primary aim of the evaluation is to assess the impact that the Healthcare Commission is having on the organisations that it assesses and inspects, and to assess how successful it is being in promoting improvements in healthcare for patients and the public.
(Healthcare Commission - publications)

27/02/06 - Health equity audit (HEA)

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has published Health equity audit : learning from practice briefing. This briefing provides a summary of learning from three workshops on HEA, and examples of completed or near-completed HEAs to illustrate these learning points.
(NICE - publications)

27/02/06 - Measuring health service productivity

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has published Public service productivity : health, which builds on the first health productivity publication in October 2004. The article discusses various methodologies and measures of quality improvements in the National Health Service. It estimates the change in productivity associated with public expenditure on health using National Accounts data from 1995 to 2004, in the context of wider information about health spending, output, outcomes and measurement issues. The main publication has a complementary technical article on sources and methods.
(ONS - Government output and productivity/health) BBC news item

27/02/06 - Review on infected blood products

A review in to how patients were infected with hepatitis C and HIV through contaminated blood in the 1970s and early 1980s, has been published by the Department of Health. Self-sufficiency in blood products in England and Wales: a chronology from 1973 to 1991 is the result of a review of surviving documents from 1973 (when a decision was made to pursue self-sufficiency for England and Wales) to 1991 (when a validated screening test for hepatitis C was introduced in the UK). The report concludes that:

• Nobody acted wrongly in the light of the facts that were available to them at the time; 
• Every effort was made by the Government to pursue self sufficiency in blood products during the 1970s and early 1980s ;
• The more serious consequences of hepatitis C, only became apparent in 1989 and the development of reliable tests for its recognition in 1991;
• Tests to devise a procedure to make the hepatitis C virus inactive were developed and introduced as soon as practicable;
• Self sufficiency in blood products would not have prevented haemophiliacs from being infected with hepatitis C. Even if the UK had been self sufficient, the prevalence of hepatitis C in the donor population would have been enough to spread the virus throughout the pool.

(DH - press release)

24/02/06 - Commissioning a Patient-led NHS Update 17

This is the latest update in a regular series of updates on Commissioning a patient-led NHS (CPLNHS). It includes information for consultation leads when compiling results on local consultations, and the timetable set for post local consultations on SHA and PCT reconfiguration. (DH - CPLNHS)

24/02/06 - Report on self management of long term conditions

The Department of Health has published a report on Supporting people with long term conditions to self care. The report is a guide for health and social care services to develop local strategies and good practice through an integrated package which includes information, self monitoring devices, self care skills, education and training and self care support networks.

(DH publications)

23/02/06 - Agreement on changes to the general medical services (GMS) contract

This letter updates general practitioners about the changes to the GMS contract from the 1st April 2006. It covers the key changes regarding the Choose and Book service and practice based commissioning. The letter includes an appendix about patient expectations. (DH - letter)