News in brief
NHS suppliers must be forced to list prices online to slash £500m overspend: In order to drive out £500m of overspend caused by price variation, research has revealed that the government must force NHS suppliers to list their prices on a comparison website, reported Computer Weekly. According to the survey, some trusts are paying over twice the average price for the same supplies. Joe Stringer, partner at Ernst & Young, said: “When price comparison sites happened in the insurance industry, some 15% was immediately taken out of the market. This is something we absolutely need mandation for, as suppliers are doing everything they can to push against proposals for a transparent view of pricing. If a supplier wants to do business with the NHS they should be expected to make the cost of their products transparent.”
Reform is changing the investment picture in the UK and US: According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the cost of healthcare worldwide is going to increase significantly in the coming years as pharmaceutical companies develop drugs for new diseases, reported FT Advisor. According to the IMF deputy managing director Min Zhu, reforming healthcare systems should be high on the list of priorities of governments as they continue to work on cutting deficits and debt. He said: “We enjoy a higher quality of healthcare today, but we have to find a way to finance it.”
E-prescribing info to be shared: Healthcare organisations in the south west of England are looking at an e-prescribing system and integration service which will allow them to more effectively share information, reported Healthcare Today. The system will cover providers of acute, community, primary, social and end-of life care as well as the region’s ambulance trust. The South Devon partnership is one of six collaborations, involving 21 southern acute trusts, formed to invest in a variety of new IT systems after receiving no funding from the National Programme for IT in the NHS. Future developments could see the system extended to care homes, community hospitals, out-of-hours providers and community pharmacies.
NHS care hit by more rationing: The Telegraph has reported that the health service is struggling to save £20 billion over four years and a growing number of treatments are being restricted. Experts revealed that even essentials such as cataract surgery are being withheld in some areas. When a primary care trust refuses to fund treatment, GPs or other doctors can make an ‘individual funding request’ on behalf of the patient and this is looked at by a panel of experts. A series of Freedom of Information Act requests has revealed that such requests increased by a fifth between 2010/11 and 2011/12.
Lancashire NHS Trust trials authentication system: Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust is evaluating new software used to authenticate NHS employees when accessing key infrastructure, reported Government Computing. The aim of the trial is that the community and mental health provider, along with 45 other NHS organisations evaluating the identity software, will help provide a ‘reference architecture’ allowing deployment lessons to be learned and shared with other NHS bodies. The Identity Agent software allows NHS workers using Windows 7 or 8 to connect to the National Programme for IT’s Spine infrastructure via NHS smartcards. Most NHS employees use Windows XP, but the new software will let them move to the newer versions of Windows. Microsoft said that this will result in higher productivity and efficiency and improve access to modern applications.
Action urged over ‘appalling’ NHS care: Campaigners have highlighted a series of “appalling” examples of poor care, where patients are said to have been neglected, left in pain and without food and water, reported the BBC. The Patients Association said its dossier of 13 cases should act as a wake-up call to the NHS across the UK. Too many patients were still being let down, although there was much to be proud of in the NHS, it said. Trusts said “decisive action” was needed when poor care was identified.
NHS Confederation appoints new chair: Following the departure of Sir Keith Pearson the NHS Confederation has appointed Michael O’Higgins as its new chair, reported HSJ (subscription required). Mr O’Higgins, who previously held the same role at the Audit Commission, will take up the part-time role with immediate effect. He will be paid £50,000 for approximately one day a week, although the workload may rise. He said: “I hope to use my role to ensure the NHS Confederation continues to be the trusted voice of the NHS, and to help the service improve care during a period of complex change.”
Oxfordshire uses EDT hub for 111: NHS Oxfordshire is using PCTI’s electronic document transfer hub to deliver 111 messages to GP practices, reported eHealth Insider. The system which went live in July enables 111 contact summary messages to be sent to GPs electronically. Paper letters can take up to 5 days to arrive at a practice, but the new system means that 111 messages are transferred through an EDT Hub directly into GP practices’ workflow via Docman. NHS Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Cluster informatics strategy and programmes project manager Una Rice said Oxfordshire chose to use the EDT Hub for the 111 service because practices were already using it to receive discharge and A&E summaries from the Oxford University Hospitals Trust.
Barnsley Council hooks into PDS: Barnsley Council and McKesson company – Liquidlogic, have achieved integration of NHS and social care records using the Personal Demographics Service, reported eHealth Insider. Using Liquidlogic’s adult social care management system, Barnsley is now able to match a person’s NHS and social care record through NHS number validation against the PDS on the Spine. Barnsley Council business information manager, Ian Fereday, said: It enables Barnsley’s social care workers and care practitioners to validate, in real-time, an individual’s NHS Number on their social care record against their health care record. Staff can not only access the PDS, but can update patient details when they change.
NHS cost-cutting being put ahead of patients’ welfare, claims watchdog: The health service regulator has warned in a report published this week, that staffing problems in NHS hospitals are leading to patients receiving poor care and being exposed to danger from errors with their medication, reported The Guardian. Doctors’ and nurses’ claim that the report shows that cost-cutting is being put ahead of patients’ health and welfare. Inspections of hospitals show that a lack of staff, especially those with the right skills, is a key reason why one in ten patients are denied respect and dignity, 15% are not fed properly and 20% have their care and welfare neglected, according to the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Hunt defends return of £3bn to Treasury: Speaking at the NHS Alliance conference in Bournemouth this week health secretary Jeremy Hunt defended the return of nearly £3bn Department of Health (DH) funding to the treasury in the past two years. He was questioned about HSJ’s revelation last month that just £316m of the £1.4bn DH underspend in 2011-12 was carried over for it to use in 2012-13, while the entire £1.9bn underspend in 2010-11 was returned to the treasury. Responding, Mr Hunt highlighted that the DH was receiving static real terms funding while other departments were facing significant real terms cuts. He also said that for “three or four years” under the previous government the DH had “underspent by more” than in the previous two years.
Imprivata join forces with the One Health Alliance: Imprivata has announced that it is the latest supplier to join the One Health Alliance (OHA), a group of healthcare technology providers working collaboratively to provide best of breed systems to the NHS, reported eHealth News. The group, which meets on a quarterly basis, works together to exchange experiences and ideas as well as identifying opportunities and tenders on which to work together to strengthen the offerings of individual members to better meet the NHS’ requirements. Mark Clark, international vice president at Imprivata said: “In the short time that Imprivata has been a member of the OHA it has been invaluable in providing the company with the networking opportunities necessary to establish constructive relationships with other suppliers that can often take months or years to form.”
Opinion
NHS staff need to be creative to hit QIPP targets
This week Dr Mahmood Adil, who is national QIPP adviser for clinical and finance engagement at the Department of Health and visiting professor of value-based healthcare at Manchester Business School wrote in the Guardian that, “NHS staff need to be creative to hit QIPP targets.” Even though the NHS has saved £5.8bn in the last year without compromising quality, Dr Adil believes that to continue to hit targets clinicians and finance managers must work together.
“There are a number of things happening in the NHS which would help to create better value-based healthcare. Reducing human suffering motivates me and many thousands of clinical and finance professionals to improve quality and decrease cost in the NHS. Both must lay down strong foundations in the service to serve future generations through effective engagement.
“The 2011-12 period was the first full year of the £20bn productivity challenge – QIPP – and national figures showed that the efforts of NHS organisations led to a saving of £5.8bn without any compromise in quality. This is an excellent start but to repeat it in the remaining three years, organisations have to be creative, proactive, show perseverance and harness their expertise to achieve value for patients.
“It won’t be easy, but late Body Shop founder Anita Roddick put it well: ‘To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality’.”
How one CCG is using Facebook to improve communication
Dr Hamed Khan principal GP in Oxted has been been tasked by Esydoc, his East Surrey CCG, to develop its use of social media. In an article in the Guardian he discusses why Facebook is a great way for doctors to communicate and share files – once potential pitfalls have been considered.
“GPs traditionally have a habit of working very separately from one another, each locked away in their own consultation room. But as we prepare to take on a host of new management responsibilities under the health reforms, we have suddenly found the need to do a lot more talking.
“At the heart of our social media activity is a Facebook group that board members can use to speak to one another. The group also allows the CCG to communicate with the ‘rank and file’ GPs in the area. Take a recent example of one of our GPs who posted about a joint clinic and uploaded the referral form. Within seconds, members could download and print the form, refer patients and provide valuable feedback about the new service.
“Thanks to social media, we no longer need to rely on face-to-face meetings or long chains of emails to share ideas and hold discussions. It is like an online meeting with real-time minutes that can be easily accessed and updated at any time.
“Of course, as one of the first CCGs to create an active social media strategy, there are some potential pitfalls to consider.
“Concerns will always exist around internet security and privacy for instance, though we have mitigated these with meticulous moderation and full use of Facebook’s multitude of security settings. All of the group’s conversations are “closed” and only visible to group members. Instead, we use our Twitter feed to keep the public up-to-date on our work.
“I am fortunate to work within an innovative CCG that is keen to embrace change and new ways of communicating. Hopefully, it will not be long until others follow our example.”
Developing integrated care at scale and pace: time to make it happen
Chris Ham, chief executive of The King’s Fund blogs following their recent roundtable discussion with key stakeholders, at the request of Norman Lamb, the Care and Support Minister. The purpose being, to consider what needs to be done to make a reality of integrated care!
“Participants at the discussion were clear that there is no one best way of developing integrated care and the emphasis should be placed on discovery and not design in taking forward policy in this area. There was strong support for the suggestion that integrated care should be developed at scale and pace by enabling a number of areas of the country to test out different approaches. These areas would be encouraged to innovate in the use of payment systems and contracting mechanisms, and they would be allowed to suspend rules that get in the way of progress.
“The past decade has shown how care can be transformed when the commitment of politicians is joined with the actions of NHS leaders and the engagement of frontline staff. With long waiting times a distant memory, the challenge is to apply a similar approach to better meet the needs of the growing numbers of older patients and users with several co-existing medical conditions for whom effective care coordination is an overriding priority.”
Chris Ham concluded: “Our priorities in 2013 include supporting leaders in a small number of areas to develop integrated care at scale and pace and offering a new leadership development programme focused on what it means to share leadership across a whole system of care. We shall also continue to propose changes in policy that are needed to remove barriers to integrated care…”
CCG managers must make sense of evidence
HSJ columnist, Aileen Clarke, professor of public health and health services research at the University of Warwick describes how making sense of evidence in clinical commissioning groups is a skill that will take managers time to develop – and will require help from a knowledgeable team.
“When we go to the doctor, we expect a straightforward approach where the treatment we get is based on the best evidence of what works. In the same way we all need our local NHS commissioning managers to make good decisions based on the best evidence when they plan and organise our healthcare. I have been involved in a study looking at commissioning managers making decisions and found an interesting picture.
“Primary care trusts used to receive the bulk of the NHS budget to allow them to commission healthcare from hospitals and community services, but the NHS reforms have changed that.”
Highland Marketing Blog
This week Chris Marsom, the new recruit to our team, looks at the value of branding and asks is the ‘NHS ‘Head of Brand’ really worth £100,000 a year?’
