Health Management and Policy Alert

Mental Capacity Act 2005

This Dear colleague letter sets out the new resources being made available for the health sector for the year 2008/9 for work in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. (DH - Dear colleague letters)

Nutritional care in hospitals

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has launched the first three in a series of ten fact sheets to support the 10 key characteristics of good nutritional care in hospitals produced by the Council of Europe Alliance (UK). The fact sheets have been developed by the NPSA in conjunction with the Royal College of Nursing, the Hospital Caterers Association, the National Association of Care Caterers and key stakeholders from the private sector. The first three releases explore the following:

• Food service and nutritional care is delivered to the patient safely 
• Implementation of Protected Mealtimes to provide an environment conducive to patients enjoying and being able to eat their food
• Supporting a multi-disciplinary approach to nutritional care and valuing the contribution of all staff groups working in partnership with patients and users

(NPSA - news)

The use of antipsychotics for people with dementia in care homes

In Always a last resort, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia examines the use of antipsychotics for people with dementia in care homes. The Group heard that over-prescribing is a significant problem in many care homes. These drugs are prescribed as a response to the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, experienced as a result not only of the condition, but also as a result of a wider and more complex set of problems external to the individual’s condition. These problems include a lack of support from external services. The report recommends a five point action plan of which one is 'more pro-active support for care home staff from GPs, community psychiatric nurses and psychiatrists'.
(Alzheimers Society - News)

RCN Congress 2008

The Royal College of Nursing's annual congress is taking place from 27 April to 1 May. News from the meeting so far includes:

• RCN survey shows nurses spend more than a million hours a week on paperwork (RCN - press release)
• nurses call for dignity to be at the heart of nursing (RCN - press release)
• emergency care nurses under pressure to meet four-hour waiting target (RCN - press release)
• launch of new RCN strategic plan 2008-2013 - Forward Together (RCN - governance)

Integrated Drug Treatment System for Prisons (IDTS)

A third wave of DH funding for IDTS from 2008/9 onwards has been approved for the development of enhanced clinical services for drug treatment in a further 38 prisons. (DH - Dear colleague letters)

Revised guidance: primary care dental contracts advice on managing end of year issues

This DH guidance provides advice for SHAs to share with PCTs on year-end performance issues. This includes arrangements for carrying forward any under-delivered services within the 4% tolerance allowed for within dental contracts, and working with dental providers to ensure, as far as possible, that an even pattern of service is delivered throughout the contract year, and any early completion of contracted activity is managed. (DH - publications)

Teams without walls: the value of medical innovation and leadership

The success of providing care closer to home lies in developing ‘teams without walls’, according to a working party of three medical Royal Colleges. Teams without walls brings together healthcare professionals from primary and secondary care to work across traditional health boundaries to deliver care that puts the patient first. The working party, made up of representatives from the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, suggests that jointly commissioned integrated health services should be provided by primary and secondary care working together.  (RCGP - press release

NHS Statistics

Prescription cost analysis 2007

The National Service Framework (NSF) for diabetes: five years on...are we half way there?

According to a report published by Diabetes UK on the ten-year NSF for diabetes, the Government will fail to deliver on standards it set itself five years ago if it doesn't refocus NHS efforts. Diabetes UK concludes that while some people with diabetes in some parts of the country receive excellent care, many are still not benefiting from the effective delivery of diabetes services that the NSF set out to achieve. Diabetes UK argues that patchy NHS services are putting almost 1.9 million people with diabetes in England at increased risk of serious complications including heart disease, stroke and blindness. (Diabetes UK - press release)

Improving choice at end of life

An independent King’s Fund evaluation has revealed that significantly more people have been helped to choose to die in their own homes at no greater cost to the NHS as part of a pilot project led by Marie Curie Cancer Care. Since 2004, UK charity Marie Curie’s Delivering Choice Programme has worked with doctors and nurses in hospitals, hospices and community services to give people in Lincolnshire with terminal illnesses the choice of dying at home, rather than in hospital. The King’s Fund’s analysis of the impact and costs of the programme concludes that it represents a cost effective model of care that can make choosing to die at home a real option for dying patients. (King's Fund - press release)