Health Management and Policy Alert

Implementing the recommendations of the Neonatal Critical Care Transformation Review

NHS England and NHS Improvement - 

This action plan to implement the recommendations of the Neonatal Critical Care Transformation Review sets out how the NHS will further improve neonatal care with the support of funding set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. The recommendations are grouped under the following themes: aligning capacity; developing the expert neonatal workforce; enhancing the experience of families; and making it happen. For each theme, the report summarises the evidence for the change, who needs to do what by when to inform regional commissioning planning processes and decision making and what support is available.

• Action plan
• More detail

A competency framework for designated prescribing practitioners

Royal Pharmaceutical Society - 

This framework supports individuals across all independent prescribing professions, training providers and universities to understand what competencies must be met to provide safe and effective prescribing supervision to independent prescribers. Regulatory changes in 2019 mean that experienced non-medical prescribers of any professional background can become responsible for a trainee prescriber's period of learning in practice.

• Framework
• More detail

NHS public health functions agreement 2019-20: public health functions to be exercised by NHS England

Department of Health and Social Care -
This agreement sets out the arrangements under which the Secretary of State delegates responsibility to NHS England for certain public health services. The services currently commissioned in this way are: national immunisation programmes; national population screening programmes; Child Health Information Services; public health services for adults and children in secure and detained settings in England; and sexual assault services.

• Guidance
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

The state of medical education and practice in the UK: 2019

General Medical Council -
This report highlights changing approaches to work-life balance and career development which impact on UK health services’ ability to plan for patient demand. Against a backdrop of rising workloads and the need to recruit and retain a sustainable medical workforce, the report finds doctors moving away from traditional career and training paths. Among notable trends is the rise in the number of doctors choosing to spend time working as a locum, practising medicine abroad, or even taking a year out, rather than going straight into specialty or GP training after the completion of their initial training.

• Report
• General Medical Council - press release

General Dental Council patient and public research: report 2018–19

Ipsos MORI - 

This report contains the findings of a quantitative survey of the general public carried out by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the General Dental Council (GDC). The research comprised a survey, in-depth interviews and a deliberative workshop. The objectives of the research were to: track how opinions may have changed against a set of baseline questions that were asked in the previous surveys; capture and compare public and patient awareness and perceptions of the GDC, its performance and impact in fulfilling its regulatory roles and responsibilities; obtain public and patient insight into key policy initiatives being developed by the GDC; test public views and understanding of topical or current issues in dentistry/dental regulation; and identify emerging policy issues that are relevant to the GDC.

• Report
• More detail

National Diabetes Audit 2017-18: report 2a – complications and mortality

NHS Digital - 

This report from the National Diabetes Audit covers complications of diabetes. The report has been divided into three main sections: cardiovascular complications ; diabetes specific complications; and mortality. Each section aims to address overall rates, time trends, geographical variation, hospital utilisation.

• Report
• More detail

National Vascular Registry: 2019 annual report

Royal College of Surgeons of England - 

This is the seventh annual report since the National Vascular Registry was launched in 2013. It contains comparative information on five major interventions for vascular disease: lower limb bypass; lower limb angioplasty/stenting; major lower limb amputation; carotid endarterectomy; and repair of aortic aneurysms, including elective infra-renal, ruptured infra-renal, and more complex aneurysms.

• Report
• More detail

Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network annual report 2019: summary report

Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet) - 

This is the sixteenth annual PICANet clinical audit report summarising paediatric critical care that took place in the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland (ROI) between 2016 and 2018. PICANet continues to provide key information to monitor the quality of care and clinical outcomes in relation to agreed standards, and inform national policy in paediatric critical care.

• Report
• More detail

National Neonatal Audit Programme (NNAP): 2019 annual report on 2018 data

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health - 

This is the sixteenth annual PICANet clinical audit report summarising paediatric critical care that took place in the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland (ROI) between 2016 and 2018. PICANet continues to provide key information to monitor the quality of care and clinical outcomes in relation to agreed standards, and inform national policy in paediatric critical care.

• Report
• More detail

Saving lives, improving mothers’ care: lessons learned to inform maternity care from the UK and Ireland Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths and Morbidity 2015-17

MBRRACE-UK - 

This is the sixth annual report produced for the Maternal, Newborn and Infant Clinical Outcome Review Programme, run by the MBRRACE-UK collaboration. The authors analysed 2.3m pregnancies from 2015-2017 in the UK and Ireland. During that three year period, 209 women in the UK and Ireland died during their pregnancies or up to six weeks afterwards from pregnancy-related causes. This is equivalent to just over nine women per 100,000. The leading cause of maternal deaths in the UK is still cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks, heart failure and heart rhythm problems, and there has been no reduction in maternal deaths from heart related causes for more than 15 years.

• Report
• More detail