Health Management and Policy Alert

Safe, sustainable and productive staffing: an improvement resource for the deployment of nursing associates in secondary care

National Quality Board - 

This resource describes the principles for safe staffing including organisational, managerial and clinical setting factors alongside governance, leadership and reporting to ensure that nursing associates are safely and effectively deployed into the workforce.  

• Report
• More detail

GP partnership review: final report

Department of Health and Social Care -

The review engaged with GPs and others with an interest to look for solutions to reinvigorate the partnership model and support the transformation of general practice. This report details the findings of the review and makes final recommendations to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and to the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England.

• Report
• More detail

Improving junior doctors' access to educational opportunities

NHS Employers - 

This case study describes how Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust used rota re-design to make improvements around the delivery of education and training within core medical training (CMT). The trust engaged its junior doctors to understand what was needed to accommodate the new three-year curriculum requirements which has replaced the current two-year CMT programme.

• Case study
• Press release

Driving improvements through development programme

NHS Employers - 

This case study from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals describes how a leadership and development programme for newly-appointed senior doctors has increased their skills and knowledge and had a positive impact on patient care. The programme, which has been running successfully since its introduction in 2015, is now part of mandatory training for all new specialty and associate specialist (SAS) doctors and consultants.

• Case study
• Press release

Workforce briefing - winter 2018

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health -
This briefing reveals that patient demand is strongly outstripping the supply of doctors as the usual seasonal increase combined with a rise in children’s emergency admissions is placing unprecedented demand on services. It highlights some of the key findings from the College's Workforce census 2017 and provides recommendations for the future of the paediatric and child health workforce.

• Briefing
• Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health - news

Primary Dental Services Statements of Financial Entitlements (Amendment) Directions 2018

Department of Health and Social Care -
These directions implement changes to the payments made by NHS England to contractors under a dental service contract with effect from 1 April 2018. The changes relate to: implementation of the 2018 to 2019 pay and expenses and training allowances settlement for dentists; insertion of the applicable up-to-date statutory maternity allowance rate; and NHS England flexibility payments to dental contractors.

• Directions
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

NHS pension scheme: proposed changes to scheme regulations 2019

Department of Health and Social Care -
The Department of Health and Social Care is consulting on proposals to change NHS pension scheme regulations. Proposed changes include: introducing a new contribution rate of 20.6 per cent for employers from 1 April 2019; renewing current member contribution rates so that the same rates continue to apply beyond 31 March 2019; providing civil partners and same sex spouses with the same survivor pension rights as widows; and extending the current forfeiture of pension benefits rules.

• Consultation
• Department of Health and Social Care - consultations

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

Advancing medical professionalism

Royal College of Physicians -
This report underlines how essential professionalism is in increasing job satisfaction, improving patient care and raising productivity, and looks at what this means for doctors under growing pressures from increased workload, to their own remit and to their relationship with patients. It points to a growing gap between what doctors are trained to do and the realities of their workplace – competing ideals of what is good practice, rising demand, and increasing regulatory and legal obligations. According to the report, doctors also face ethical dilemmas and clashes in professional personal values.

• Report
• Royal College of Physicians - news

Nursing degree apprenticeships: in poor health?

House of Commons Education Committee -
This report warns that the uptake of nursing degree apprenticeships has been slow with no more than 30 starters beginning training through the scheme last year. It argues that there is no evidence of how the Department for Education intends to meet the target of 400 nursing associates progressing to degree apprenticeships from 2019. It finds universities and employers are currently trying to navigate a 'maze of bureaucracy' when trying to deliver degree apprenticeships and calls for much greater flexibility in the system and the use of the apprenticeships levy.

• Report
• House of Commons Education Committee - news