Closer to critical? QualityWatch

"Our third annual statement, Closer to critical?, aims to help policy-makers, healthcare leaders, patient groups and others make sense of quality across health and social care, primarily in England. We observe that while there are many areas of excellent care, there are also increasingly clear signals that in some areas quality is deteriorating."

Closer to critical? QualityWatch annual statement 2015
The Health Foundation, Nuffield Trust
November 2015

Read more here.

NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare 2015

"Improving value across the NHS landscape is the central aim of providing the information in Atlas 3.0. As in maps of health, these maps of healthcare show us where to focus efforts to improve health and healthcare while holding the line on costs."

NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare 2015: Reducing unwarranted variation to

increase value and improve quality

NHS England

September 2015

Access the Atlas here. 

A Right Care Collaboration 2015/19: Forward View

"During 2015/16, NHS Right Care will scale up its activities and will seek to develop partnerships across the major NHS bodies to develop a variations and value programme." 

A Right Care Collaboration 2015/19: Forward View
NHS Right Care
June 2015

Read more here.

Using clinical practice variations as a method for commissioners and clinicians to identify and prioritise opportunities for disinvestment

"We aimed to explore if geographical variation in procedure rates is a marker of clinical uncertainty and might be used by local commissioners to identify procedures that are potential candidates for disinvestment."

Using clinical practice variations as a method for commissioners and clinicians to identify and prioritise opportunities for disinvestment in health care: a cross-sectional study, systematic reviews and qualitative study
W Hollingworth et al.
Health Services Delivery and Research, 3(13), April 2015

Read more here.

Three tests for a credible health policy

"

To understand whether the policies of 

the different parties will maintain and 

improve the quality of care, both now 

and in the future, it is essential for 

politicians to demonstrate how their 

proposals address the three tests for 

a credible health policy. Failing to 

meet any one of these tests would 

have serious consequences for the 

NHS and the care patients receive.

" 

Three tests for a credible health policy: The Health Foundation's policy recommendations in the run up to the 2015 general election

The Health Foundation

February 2015

Read more here. 

European Collaboration for Healthcare Optimisation Atlas reports

"ECHO performance Atlases report unwarranted differences in health systems performance across ECHO countries. Atlas reports on cardiovascular care, lower value care and potentially avoidable admissions have been yielded. These reports feature international and in-country variations in performance, its evolution over-time, the effect of socioeconomic gradient, and provide some policy messages derived from the results."

European Collaboration for Healthcare Optimisation Atlas reports
February 2014

Access the Atlases here.

Service redesign case studies

NHS Confederation is publishing a series of service redesign case studies:

• Healthier together - the Greater Manchester
• The Southern Health acquisition of Ridgeway