New Commissioning for Value packs

"The information in the packs will be of particular interest to CCG clinical and management leads with responsibility for finance, performance, improvement and health outcomes; to NHS England regional team leads; and to commissioning support teams who are helping CCGs with this work."

Commissioning for Value – comprehensive data packs to support CCGs and NHS England in the regions
NHS England
January 2016

Access the packs here.

New NICE Guideline: Melanoma: assessment and management

"This guideline covers the assessment and management of melanoma (a type of skin cancer) in children, young people and adults. It aims to reduce variation in practice and improve survival."

Melanoma: assessment and management - NICE guidelines [NG14] 
NICE
July 2015

Read more here.

“Conversation Ready”: A Framework for Improving End-of-Life Care

"This white paper describes the Conversation Ready framework, the changes associated with the framework’s five principles that can be implemented to improve end-of-life care, examples of changes tested by organizations, and suggested measures to guide improvement."

“Conversation Ready”: A Framework for Improving End-of-Life Care (IHI White Paper)
K McCutcheon Adams, A Kabcenell, K Little, L Sokol-Hessner
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
June 2015

Read more here.

High performing hospitals: a qualitative systematic

"The objective of this study was to undertake a systematic review of qualitative literature to identify methods used to identify high performing hospitals, the factors associated with high performers, and practical strategies for improvement."

High performing hospitals: a qualitative systematic review of associated factors and practical strategies for improvement
N Taylor, R Clay-Williams, E Hogden, J Braithwaite, O Groene
BMC Health Services Research 2015, 15:244  doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0879-z

Read more here.

Wrong-Site Surgery, Retained Surgical Items, and Surgical Fires

"Current estimates for wrong-site surgery and retained surgical items are 1 event per 100 000 and 1 event per 10 000 procedures, respectively, but the precision is uncertain, and the per-procedure prevalence of surgical fires is not known. "

Wrong-Site Surgery, Retained Surgical Items, and Surgical Fires: A Systematic Review of Surgical Never Events 
S Hempe et al.
JAMA Surgery June 10, 2015. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2015.0301

Read more here.

Improving GP services: commissioners and patient choice

"This report presents the findings of our review of how GP services are working for patients, with a specific focus on the role of choice and competition...Here, we focus on the role of patient choice in driving improvements in the quality of GP services"

Improving GP services: commissioners and patient choice
Monitor
June 2015

Read more here.

Towards a framework for enhancing procurement and supply chain management practice in the NHS

"Those doing procurement in Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS hospitals need to gain a greater understanding of how this activity is done in commercial settings to improve their skills in the NHS. This study reviews research that has been done in this area already, presents an overview of it and uses it to suggest ways that clinicians and managers in the NHS can carry out their procurement role better."

Towards a framework for enhancing procurement and supply chain management practice in the NHS: lessons for managers and clinicians from a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical literature

J Sanderson , C Lonsdale , R Mannion , T Matharu 

Health Service Delivery & Resesearch 2015;3(18)

Read more here.

Interventions designed to improve therapeutic communications between black and minority ethnic people and professionals working in psychiatric services

"Black and minority ethnic patients in contact with psychiatric services tend to have less than optimal experiences and outcomes. This report presents the findings of a detailed review of research into interventions to improve communications between black and minority ethnic patients and professionals working in psychiatric services in order to benefit patients’ mental health."

Interventions designed to improve therapeutic communications between black and minority ethnic people and professionals working in psychiatric services: a systematic review of the evidence for their effectiveness
K Bhui, RW Aslam, A Palinski, R McCabe, MR Johnson,S Weich, et al.
Health Technology Assessment 2015;19(31)

Read more here.

Adolescents leaving mental health or social care services

"Given that, in this report, psychosocial outcomes of young people leaving any services is substantially sub-optimal very serious consideration should be given to holistic improvement of transition policies and young adult services across adolescent service providers. "

Adolescents leaving mental health or social care services: predictors of mental health and psychosocial outcomes one year later
J Memarzia, MC St Clair, M Owens, IM Goodyer, VJ Dunn
BMC Health Services Research 2015, 15:185  doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0853-9

Read more here.

Commissioning for Value national workshop videos

Videos of presentations from the Commissioning for Value workshops run in March are now available on the RightCare website. They cover topics such as using the Commissioning for value tool, improving referrals and using the RightCare approach.

Watch the videos here.

Hospital finances and productivity: in a critical condition?

"NHS hospitals have only improved efficiency at an average rate of 0.4% a year over this parliament. This is substantially below previous estimates and the 2-3% set out in the NHS Five year forward view."

Hospital finances and productivity: in a critical condition?
S Lafond, A Charlesworth, A Roberts
The Health Foundation
April 2015

Read more here.

Improvement FUNdamentals - free online course

"A new and innovative online course for those involved in health and care (starting 13 April 2015)

Are you:

• Committed to improving health and care? 
• Eager to put improvement ideas into practice?
• Wanting to study at a time and place to suit you?
• Keen to connect with a global improvement community?

If so then you are not alone, Improvement FUNdamentals is for you!

• Delivered entirely online via videos, articles and exercises
• Featuring live knowledge exchange events, allowing you to learn from experts and debate and connect with other participants
• Offered free to anyone interested in improving health and care"

Find out more here.

Using communications approaches to spread improvement

"The guide is intended for those actively engaged in health care improvement work. It introduces key
concepts about spreading ideas, and examines the evidence about the role communications can play. It then suggests practical actions you can take to effectively communicate and spread your improvement work."

Using communications approaches to spread improvement: A practical guide to help you effectively communicate and spread your improvement work
S Randall
The Health Foundation
March 2015

Read more here.

The IDEAL Collaboration

"The IDEAL Collaboration is an initiative to improve the quality of research in surgery... IDEAL is a set of recommendations for the evidence-based practice of surgery. It is geared towards participants in all stages of gathering and using evidence for the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for patients."

Find out more here.

Incentives to follow Best Practice in Health Care

"OHE has published a Briefing by Karlsberg Schaffer, Sussex and Feng summarising the evidence on incentives that encourage providers of health care to follow guidance on best practice, particularly where that guidance requires the use of specific medicines or other health technologies. These incentives include monetary and non-monetary rewards."

Incentives to follow Best Practice in Health Care

S Karlsberg Schaffer, J Sussex, Y Feng
Office of Health Economics
February 2015

Read more here (registration required).

Barriers to improvement in the NHS

"Every day, teams within the NHS strive to make things better, but individual, organisational and system-wide barriers get in the way. This evidence scan compiles published research about the key barriers to improvement in the NHS."

What's getting in the way?: Barriers to improvement in the NHS
D de Silva
The Health Foundation
February 2015

Read more here.

Population health systems: Going beyond integrated care

"The central purpose of this paper is to challenge those involved in integrated care and public health to ‘join up the dots’. This challenge recognises that population health is affected by a wide range of influences across society and within communities. Improving population health is not just the responsibility of health and social care services, or of public health professionals. Instead, we argue that it requires co-ordinated efforts across population health systems."

Population health systems: Going beyond integrated care
H Alderwick, C Ham, D Buck
The King's Fund
February 2015

Read more here.

Six building blocks for harnessing the creativity and enthusiasm of NHS staff

"There is now an overwhelming body of evidence to show that engaged staff really do deliver better health care. The NHS providers with high levels of staff engagement (as measured in the annual NHS Staff Survey) tend to have lower levels of patient mortality, make better use of resources and deliver stronger financial performance"

Staff engagement: Six building blocks for harnessing the creativity and enthusiasm of NHS staff
The King's Fund
February 2015

Read more here.

Dilemmas of a rota: Google's solution

"Doctors take many forms of leave to further career training. Many hospital rotas omit these and are not updated frequently to reflect swaps in on-call duties. As a result, confusion arises with reduced staffing levels leading to sub-optimal patient care."

Dilemmas of a rota: Google's solution
JS Qureshi, F Javaid
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u206147.w2618

Read more here.

Improving the quality of discharge summaries for elective surgical procedures

"We conclude that discharge summaries are an effective time point for intervening to provide patients with specific post-operative information and this may be optimised for different elective procedures via the introduction of electronically-distributed standardised templates."

Improving the quality of discharge summaries for elective surgical procedures at North Bristol NHS Trust

E Ladds, F Betteridge, S Yamamoto, T Gupta-Jessop

BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u203452.w1552

Read more here.