Health Management and Policy Alert

Outstanding models of district nursing

Queen's Nursing Institute (QNI) - 
This report, written in conjunction with the Royal College of Nursing, calls for urgent investment in district nursing, as new figures show the number of district nurses working in the NHS has dropped by almost 43 per cent in England in the last ten years. It explores all the elements which need to be in place to support an outstanding district nursing service.

• Report
• Press release

National survey of local innovation and research needs of the NHS

Oxford Academic Health Science Network -
This report includes analysis of the innovation and research needs at local level across all Academic Health Science Networks. There were some differences in regional priorities but common themes emerged which reflected wider challenges facing the NHS and align with the priorities of the NHS Long Term Plan. These include: a need for innovation and research addressing workforce challenges; delivery of mental health services and providing care for patients with mental health needs, particularly in children and young people; integrating services to provide effective care for patients with complex needs – including multimorbidity and frailty; and use of digital and artificial intelligence technology.

• Report
• Oxford Academic Health Science Network - news

The NHS workforce in numbers: facts on staffing and staff shortages in England

Nuffield Trust -
The data used in this report shows that there has been a recent sustained fall in the number of GPs relative to the size of the population across the UK nations. This does not appear to have happened since the 1960s. For the overall number of GPs to have kept pace with the number of people in the UK since 2014 some 3,400 more GPs would have been needed.

• Report
• Nuffield Trust - blogs

Independent evaluation of the Think Ahead programme

Think Ahead -
The Think Ahead programme is a graduate scheme, offering graduates and career-changers a new route into mental health social work. This report contains an independent evaluation of the Think Ahead programme, and contains a raft of positive findings. It concludes that the programme is “worthy of continued support and further development”. The evaluation followed the first cohort of Think Ahead participants and concludes that the programme was successful in achieving the objectives it set out to accomplish. The report lists nine key findings.

• Report
• Think Ahead - press release

Caring for the mental health of the medical workforce

British Medical Association - 

This report provides a summary of findings from a large-scale survey into doctors’ and medical students’ mental health. The survey, which was open to BMA members and non-members across the UK received over 4,300 responses. Four in ten respondents to our survey reported currently experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, burnout, stress, emotional distress or a mental health condition that is impacting on their work/training/study.

• Report
• More detail

Implementation, impact and costs of policies for safe staffing in acute NHS trusts

University of Southampton - 

This report finds that hospital wards across the NHS in England are still under staffed and putting patient lives at risk despite new policies coming into force as a result of the 2013 Mid-Staffordshire Inquiry. New workforce guidelines have not led to significant improvements on the hospital wards. According to the study, hospitals are facing major challenges in recruiting and retaining registered nurses with an average vacancy rate reported at ten per cent across the country, with rates as high as 20 per cent in some trusts.

• Report
• Press release

 

Specialist nursing support for unpaid carers of people with dementia: a mixed-methods feasibility study

Centre for Health Economics - 

Admiral Nursing is the only specialist nursing service in the UK that specifically focuses on supporting carers of people with dementia, but evidence of its effectiveness, costs, and relationships to other services is limited. This project, jointly undertaken with the University of York’s Social Policy Research Unit, aimed to address this gap and explore the feasibility of full-scale formal evaluation.

• Report
• Press release

Health and wellbeing at work

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development -

This is the nineteenth annual survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) exploring trends and practices in health, well-being and absence management in UK workplaces. Overall, the findings reflect employers' growing recognition of their critical role in improving the health of the workforce. But the survey highlights some cause for concern, including an increase in stress-related absence and a lack of support for managers, who are increasingly expected to take responsibility for their team's well-being. The CIPD is calling on employers to invest in more training and development for managers and have published some top tips to support managers to minimise stress in their teams.

• Report
• More detail

Workforce stress and the supportive organisation: a framework for improvement through reflection, curiosity and change

Health Education England - 

Health Education England commissioned the National Workforce Skills Development Unit (NWSDU) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust to develop a resource to get employers to rethink how they deal with workforce stress. The framework encourages employers to take a closer look at the systems they currently have in place for managing staff wellbeing, it challenges them to give greater consideration to the impact workforce stress has on staff and look at the role they can play in providing better support to staff who may need it.

• Framework
• Press release

Consultation on the academy for advancing practice

Health Education England - 

Health Education England (HEE) is consulting on different standards for the establishment of its new academy for advancing practice. The academy, which is being set up to standardise routes into advanced clinical practice (ACP), will recognise registered health and care practitioners who demonstrate the capabilities set out in the ACP or consultant practitioner framework. It will also take on responsibility for accrediting ACP education programmes. HEE is seeking views on the standards for education and training, standards for the equivalence route and the operating framework for the academy. The consultation is open until 22 April 2019.

• Consultation documents