Health Management and Policy Alert

Reducing emergency admissions: unlocking the potential of people to better manage their long-term conditions

The Health Foundation - 

This briefing summarises research that explores the link between how well patients feel able to manage their long-term conditions such as asthma, diabetes and depression and their use of health care. The findings show the NHS could reduce avoidable health care use and improve people’s quality of life, if they were better supported to manage their long-term conditions. The briefing points to solutions and calls for national policy makers and the local NHS to take action now, including by prioritising support for self-management in the NHS long-term plan.

• Briefing
• More detail

Joined-up listening: integrated care and patient insight

The King's Fund -
This article articulates the opportunity that integrated care presents for using insight from people and populations to design services that meet their needs and reflect their priorities. This includes breaking down siloes within and between organisations to listen to what patients are saying across their entire pathway of care.

• Article

Equality assessment: childhood obesity: a plan for action, chapter 2

Department of Health and Social Care -
This paper examines the effects of the policy intentions set out by the government on people with protected characteristics.

• Report
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

An international comparison of long-term care funding and outcomes: insights for the social care green paper

Incisive Health -
This report, written in partnership with Age UK, finds that different countries have responded to the challenges and opportunities of ageing in different ways and with varying degrees of urgency.

• Report
• Incisive Health - blogs

The good childhood report 2018

The Children's Society -
This report examines the state of children’s well-being in the UK. It finds that one in six (16 per cent) of more than 11,000 children aged 14 surveyed reported self-harming. It looks at the reasons behind the unhappiness which increases the risk of children self-harming. The report urges the Government to make sure that every child can talk to a counsellor in their school.

• Report
• The Children's Society - press release

The Brexit White Paper on future relations and alternative proposals

House of Commons Library -
This briefing paper looks at some of the proposals in the White Paper, their reception in the UK and EU, and any corresponding provisions in the DExEU ‘alternative white paper’. It discusses medicine and access to health care.

• Briefing
• House of Commons Library - publications

Guidance on co-locating mental health therapists in primary care

NHS England - 

This guidance document has been created to assist GPs, practice managers and commissioners who are integrating mental health therapists into primary care pathways by providing information on how to do this.

• Guidelines
• Press release

 

Information for the health and care sector about planning for a potential no-deal Brexit

Department of Health and Social Care -
This collection of resources brings together guidance, correspondence and news for people involved in the health and care sector. Service providers should consider this guidance in the context of their existing business continuity plans. The latest guidance published covers regulation, testing and labelling if the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with 'no deal'.

• Resource collection

NHS data security: protecting patient records

Parliament Street - 

Using Freedom of Information legislation, sixty-eight NHS trusts were asked for information on patient records which were reported 'missing' over the 2017-2018 financial year. This revealed that nearly 10,000 patient records were lost over this period.

• Report
• More detail

Beyond social care: keeping later life positive

Which? - 

In the light of the forthcoming government green paper on adult social care in England, this report looks at how consumers engage with social care in practice. Around one in ten elderly people with care needs now face care costs of over £100,000. Yet only one in 10 adults aged 55 or over say they've put aside money to pay for care needs as they get older. The system must recognise that people are unlikely to plan for their care and should be designed to act quickly and effectively at times of crisis - when many people interact with the care system for the first time.

• Report
• Press release