Health Management and Policy Alert: October 2012

A report by the Health Service Ombudsman and the Local Government Ombudsman about the provision of section 117 aftercare

This report outlines findings from a joint investigation into a complaint made about the standard of mental health care provided in a specific case, and particularly about the necessity for the patient in question to fund their own placement in a residential care home.

Posted at 02:15 PM | Permalink

Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) for urgent and emergency care

These tools have been developed to measure the experience of paediatric patients 0-16 years in all urgent and emergency care settings including GP practices, out-of-hours centres, A&E departments and the ambulance service. The survey The survey was developed with input from paediatric patients, ensuring that their views were captured early in the design process. It aims to help emergency departments, GP surgeries, walk-in or urgent care centres and the ambulance service to identify areas that are important to paediatric patients, as well as areas for improvement.

Posted at 02:09 PM | Permalink

Better understanding of levels of support for individual employers and their personal assistants (PAs)

This report outlines research with local authorities into levels of support offered to more than 170,000 individual employers and their personal assistants, who now make up around a fifth of the adult social care workforce. It forms a key part of the implementation of the Department of Health's PA Framework. It points to the leadership role that local authorities have as commissioners in developing local markets. It also makes it clear that local authority partnerships with direct payment support and user led organisations are crucial to embed personalisation.

Posted at 01:56 PM | Permalink

Mitigating equal pay risks following the end of the Computer Aided Job Evaluation system (CAJE)

This guidance describes the equal pay risks for organisations, and how to mitigate these risks, once CAJE provision comes to an end on the 31st December 2012. It sets out what employers should seek from any replacement computer aided job evaluation tool, sign posts specific advice about consistency checking of job matching and evaluation outcomes and advises on how to manage the data currently within the CAJE system once it has been returned to employers. It is aimed mainly at English employers, but its principles apply to all NHS employers in the UK.

Posted at 01:39 PM | Permalink

Concordat between Local Government Association (LGA) and NHS Commissioning Board

These two organisations have formally agreed to work together towards better integration of health and social care. This agreement formalises existing partnerships between the LGA and the NHS, and promotes commitment to encouraging health and social care leaders to work together, as well as ensuring access for staff across the sector to specialist training courses and best practice.

Posted at 01:21 PM | Permalink

Out of sight

This report is part of a campaign to end poor care and abuse at large, institutional-style services for people with a learning disability. It expresses concern that government proposals in the interim report of the Winterbourne review don't go far enough, and calls for the phased closure of such services, and their replacement by appropriate local services.

Posted at 01:15 PM | Permalink

Health service reconfiguration debate briefing

This briefing argues the urgent need for a full and open debate between politicians, the public and the health sector about the future of the NHS over the next ten to fifteen years. It recognises the need to better engage with local populations to explain how proposals for reconfiguration and service change will improve patient care and listen to what communities say in response. It asks that local politicians, including MPs and councillors, support open public discussions by engaging with the clinical evidence about patient outcomes, convenience and care quality.

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink

Securing the future financial sustainability of the NHS

This report examines the financial sustainability of the NHS, and states that ensuring a viable financial future for healthcare providers is vital if the public are to have confidence in the delivery of their local services. It argues that there is a lack of clarity around critical details of how the system introduced by the NHS reforms will work so that services remain available to patients in their locality.

Posted at 12:53 PM | Permalink

The never events policy framework: an update to the never events policy

This framework has been reviewed and updated in order to address areas of uncertainty and provide greater clarity about never events, and the recommended response to them following feedback from stakeholders. It offers a reference for boards, clinicians, staff and patients. It also contains data on the number and types of never events reported in 2011-12 and 2010-11.

Posted at 12:31 PM | Permalink

Application of the Mental Health Act 1983

This letter announces that the Department of Health is taking action to correct an irregularity in the application of the Mental Health Act 1983. A technical issue has been identified in the way some strategic health authorities have been administering the process for approving doctors to work under the Act. The advice is that this irregularity should be resolved through emergency retrospective legislation, which we will be in force this week. This will retrospectively validate the approval decisions that were made and will apply in principle to the approval of all doctors under the Mental Health Act from its introduction in 1983 up until Friday 26th October. Patients assessed from now on will continue to be assessed under the current provisions.

Posted at 12:29 PM | Permalink

Health Management and Policy Alert

October 2012

30/10/2012