Health Management and Policy Alert

Ambulatory emergency care: reimbursement under the national tariff

Healthcare Financial Management Association -
This briefing aims to create a better understanding of the current approaches taken to the recording and reimbursement of ambulatory care. HFMA surveyed its members to establish some basic benchmarking information to see how the guidance is currently applied.

• Briefing
• Healthcare Financial Management Association - publications

End of life care for infants, children and young adults: NICE quality standard - draft for consultation

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) -
This draft standard aims to improve end of life care for children in England. It says families who are caring for terminally ill children at home should have 24-hour access to specialist medical support and advice. The closing date for comments is 16 May 2017.

• Draft consultation
• Equality impact assessment
• NICE - news

Age and utilities: issues for HTA

Office of Health Economics -
This paper investigates whether and how age affects respondents’ Time Trade-Off (TTO) and Visual Analogue Scale valuations of hypothetical EQ-5D health states using data from the 1993 MVH UK valuation study. A key finding is the existence of an inverse U-shaped age-utility pattern, with respondents in their forties tending to provide the highest TTO values, and the oldest respondents valuing health profiles systematically (and significantly) lower than younger age groups. This trend is particularly visible for profiles describing problems in the mobility or the self-care dimensions. It builds to a discussion on the possibility of using age-specific value sets in health technology assessments, since a technology may not be cost-effective on average but cost-effective for a sub-group whose preferences over health are more closely aligned to the benefits offered by the technology.

• Report
• Office of Health Economics - news

NHS workforce race equality standard: 2016 data analysis report for NHS trusts

NHS England -
This report publishes data from providers of NHS-funded care, including the voluntary and private sector, to demonstrate how they are addressing equality issues. It includes data covering nine indicators including four relating to the workplace covering recruitment, promotion, career progression and staff development alongside BME board representation. The remaining four indicators are based on data from the NHS staff survey 2016, covering harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or the public. It shows a positive change in a range of areas including the number of nurses and midwives who have progressed from lower grades into senior positions; in BME representation at very senior management and executive board level; and a slight reduction in the reported experience of discrimination of BME staff from colleagues and managers.

• Report
• NHS England - news

Co-producing technology: harnessing digital solutions for social care

Voluntary Organisations Disability Group -
The report is based on a recent workshop, which explored how people who use services contribute to technological design and are changing the delivery of social care. It outlines how health and social care providers must collaborate with users of services when designing apps, websites and other digital technologies.

• Report
• Voluntary Organisations Disability Group - news

Productivity of the English NHS: 2014/15 update

Centre for Health Economics -
This report updates the Centre for Health Economics’ time-series of NHS productivity growth. It finds that the rate of NHS productivity growth since 2004/5 compares favourably with that achieved by the economy as a whole. It suggests that increased NHS output has come about in response to pronounced increases in NHS expenditure which has funded both higher wages and more staff and resources.

• Report
• Centre for Health Economics - publications

How cultural alignment and the use of incentives can promote a culture of health

RAND Corporation - 
This report discusses how concepts of cultural identity (e.g. ethnicity, religion or sexuality) and organisational culture can be harnessed to create a culture of health and how incentives can be used to promote wellbeing.

• Report
• RAND publications

Outcome performance measure development for persons with multiple chronic conditions

RAND Corporation - 
This report summarises analyses to assess the reliability and validity of a patient-reported outcome performance measure: the Veterans RAND twelve-item health survey (VR-12). The report makes recommendations towards the future use of performance measures and argues for the need for evaluation of the psychometrics of these measures at practice level.

• Report
• RAND publications

England's new leaders: how mayors can transform their cities

Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) - 
This report identifies the opportunities that mayors will have to improve the everyday lives of citizens in their regions. It argues that mayors should deliver inclusive growth and democracy, improved local infrastructure, embed a 'health in all policies' approach to public policy and more effective public services.

• Report
• IPPR publications

Online support: investigating the role of public online forums in mental health

The King's Fund -
This report was written by the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos in partnership with The King’s Fund. It looks at the large amounts of mental health related discussion taking place on public online forums, and explores whether computational techniques can provide robust, actionable insight from these conversations. It describes the collection and analysis of one million publicly available forum posts and addresses the technical and ethical challenges posed by the collection and analysis of online forum data.

• Report
• Blog
• The King's Fund - publications