Health Management and Policy Alert

The future of pharmacy: manifesto report

All-Party Pharmacy Group - 

This report calls for urgent action to deliver on the potential of pharmacy teams and relieve significant funding and workforce pressures. It highlights the need for a new “strategic vision” for pharmacy and highlights opportunities for the pharmacy network to be empowered to deliver even more for patients. However, the manifesto also underlines the very real risk that this opportunity may be lost if significant and ongoing pressures are not addressed.

• Report
• Press release

Workforce development framework: social prescribing link workers

NHS England - 

This framework focuses on the core functions, skills and competencies of the social prescribing link worker (SPLW) role, alongside the professional support and development SPLWs need to enable them to practice safely, work effectively, and support improved outcomes for people and communities.

• Framework
• More detail

Can mental health services afford the cost-of-living crisis?

NHS Confederation - 

While the recent extra funding to mental health crisis services is welcomed to help mental health services address the immense pressures the cost-of-living crisis is having on the mental health of England's population, this is short-term thinking. The mental health sector need governmental support to move to preventative approaches.

• Long read

Care and support reimagined: a national care covenant for England

Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care - 

This report sets out three actions to realise a new vision for care and support: rethinking attitudes to care and support; rebalancing roles and responsibilities; and redesigning the social care system. The Commission, which was launched by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in April 2021, calls for a National Care Covenant, developed through national dialogue, which sets out the roles and responsibilities of government, communities, families and individuals. Key elements of the covenant proposed by the Commission are: investment in communities; a stronger role for the state; a new deal for unpaid carers; and a commitment to our responsibilities as actively engaged citizens.

• Report
• Press release

 

Independent health care and the NHS

The King's Fund - 

In this briefing, The King's Fund sets out some of the trends in public and private spending on independent sector health care providers.

• Briefing

Follow-up on the IMMDS report and the government’s respons

House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee - 

This report states that ministers must act urgently to enable women and children avoidably harmed by medical intervention to receive compensation and care. The report finds that families have waited too long for redress or compensation because litigation through the courts was the only option open to them. Ministers had rejected an alternative approach recommended by the independent Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) review more than two years ago (‘First do no harm’) for a stand-alone redress agency.

• Report
• Press release

People, partnerships and place

Nuffield Trust - 

Integrated care systems are now legally responsible for leading the charge on using a localised approach to bring multiple aspects of the health care system closer together, and for working better with social care and other public services. But this is far from a new aspiration - why should it be any different this time? Nuffield Trust hosted a series of roundtables to discuss concerns with stakeholders and experts and understand how to ensure the aims are achieved. This briefing consolidates these findings and offers ways forward as the new era gets underway.

• Briefing
• More detail

Emergency healthcare: a national emergency

House of Lords Public Services Committee - 
This report includes an action plan, setting out suggestions as to what the Government should do to address the crisis regarding access to emergency care. It finds that, in many cases, patients are attending emergency care services because they have, or feel they have, no alternative. The report concludes that the Government should consider, consult upon, and establish a bold and ambitious new operating model for emergency health care.

• Report
• House of Lords Public Services Committee - news

What our joint vision means for people and communities this winter

NHS Confederation -
Written with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and Local Government Association, this briefing sets out a vision for a high-quality and sustainable health and care system. The briefing explores what this might mean in the current context of intense pressures across the system.

• Briefing
• NHS Confederation - news

Draft Mental Health Bill 2022

Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill -
This report outlines how the Joint Committee want the Government’s draft Mental Health Bill to be strengthened to address rising numbers detained under current legislation and racial inequalities. The Committee supports reform of the 1983 Mental Health Act and the intentions behind the draft Bill but says that the reform process needs to continue beyond the draft Bill in the direction of more rights-led legislation that respects patient choice. It also urges the Government to publish a comprehensive implementation and workforce plan alongside the Bill with clear actions and milestones.

• Report
• Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill - news