Health Management and Policy Alert

Developing a patient safety strategy for the NHS

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) - 
This consultation outlines NHS-wide proposals to ensure improved patient safety. The proposals include a commitment for some of the most important types of avoidable harm to patients to be halved over the next five years in areas such as medication errors and never events, alongside developing a 'just culture' for the NHS where frontline staff are supported to speak up when errors occur. The consultation is open for responses until 15 February 2019. 

• Consultation
• Press release

Public guidance: NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) - 
This guidance is for people who may be in need of ongoing care and support from health and social care professionals as a result of disability, accident or illness. It explains the process used to determine whether someone is eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare and takes into consideration the changes made in the 2018 update of the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare. 

• Guidance
• Further information

The independent breast screening review 2018

Department of Health and Social Care - 
This report sets out the findings and recommendations of the Independent Breast Screening Review, established to look into the failings in the breast screening programme in England. The review makes 15 recommendations for the Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England and NHS England.

• Report
• Original review

Infant, children and young people's experience of health care

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence -
This consultation states that the ideal approach to be taken when treating children cannot be extrapolated directly from adult services. The focus of this guideline is on the experience of babies, children and young people but it is recognised that parents or carers play a key role and the views of parents or carers will be taken into consideration when developing this guideline. It covers all settings where NHS or local authority commissioned health care services are provided. The issues covered by the consultation include communications, consent, access to health care, advocacy and support, patient involvement, the health care environment, and continuity and coordination of care. The consultation closes on 18 January 2019.

• Draft scope
• Equality impact assessment
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence - consultations

A review of local authorities’ relative needs and resources

Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government -
This consultation seeks views on the approach to measuring the relative needs and resources of local authorities, which will determine new baseline funding allocations for local authorities in England in 2020-21. This includes funding received for public health services. The closing date for comments is 21 February 2019.

• Consultation
• Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government - publications

Framework for effective board governance of health system quality

Institute for Healthcare Improvement -
This research finds that board members, and those who support them, desire a clear and consistent framework to guide governance of all dimensions of quality beyond safety, including identification of the core processes and necessary activities for effective governance of quality. The framework is published alongside a quality assessment toolkit and supporting guidance.

• Documents and further information

Inspire, attract and recruit: an interactive toolkit to support your workforce supply

NHS Employers -
This toolkit provides guidance, good practice, checklists, top tips, questions and leading examples from across the NHS, to help employers take stock of what may need to be done to sustain a workforce pipeline. It aims to provide practical information on understanding audiences, how to attract the right people and ensuring employees have the best on-boarding experience.

• Toolkit
• NHS Employers - news

Robotics in social care

Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology -
This POSTnote introduces robotic technology and the main ways it has been developed for use in social care. It reviews evidence on the impact of robotics on the costs and quality of social care and its workforce, and explores the main ethical, social and regulatory challenges to its use in social care.

• Briefing
• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology - publications

Making NHS data work for everyone

Reform - 

This report looks at the access and use of data held by the NHS for product and service development purposes by the private sector. Benefits can emerge from the NHS partnering with the private sector to develop healthcare technologies. The private sector can provide skills and know-how to develop data-driven tools whilst the NHS makes the data available alongside medical expertise - described as the “value exchange”. There is a lack of clarity over what a fair value exchange looks like. This combined with the lack of national strategy on types of partnerships that could be developed has led to a messy patchwork on the ground.

• Report
• More detail

Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) and other adaptations: external review

University of the West of England - 

Commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care and written by the University of the West of England, Foundations, the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and Ferret Information Systems, this review looks at how the Disabled Facilities Grant currently operates and makes evidenced based recommendations for the future. The aim is to support more people of all ages to live in suitable housing so they can stay independent for longer, and make the case for more joined up action across housing, health and social care.

• Report
• More detail