Only one in three go to Northampton General Hospital A&E by ambulance

Only one in three go to Northampton General Hospital A&E by ambulance:

ALMOST two thirds of people who attended A&E at Northampton General Hospital in a 12-month period were not taken by ambulance. Northanpton Chronicle and Echo

Design of the NHS Commissioning Board

Design of the NHS Commissioning Board:

This paper presents recommendations for the organisational design of the NHS Commissioning Board.

• Paper


• NHS Commissioning Board - board meetings

What’s paperwork got to do with healthcare improvement?

What’s paperwork got to do with healthcare improvement?: We need to recognise that improving paperwork goes hand in hand with improving systems of care, and is a collective responsibility. Improvement interventions can live or die due to the quality of documentation – and the same, tragically, can still be said of some of our patients, says Carl Macrae. Health Foundation

NHS Litigation Authority Industry Review published

NHS Litigation Authority Industry Review published:

The Department of Health has today published the report of the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) Industry Review and the Department’s response.

The Department welcomes the report, which highlights the positive role of the NHSLA and the effective contribution it has made since its establishment in 1995. The Department broadly accepts the report, its conclusions and recommendations.

The Department’s response sets out actions that will be taken forward as a result of the review undertaken by Marsh Ltd between February and April 2011.

A process of engagement will now begin with stakeholders by the NHSLA and the Department to look at how particular recommendations will be implemented or where further policy development needs to be undertaken.

See the review and the Department’s response.

Government escapes NHS rebellion

Government escapes NHS rebellion: The government appears to have escaped a rebellion by the medical establishment over its controversial NHS reforms in England. BBC News

One in 10 GP practices represent a 'significant risk' to patients, CQC says

One in 10 GP practices represent a 'significant risk' to patients, CQC says: The Care Quality Commission (CQC) estimates that 10% of all GP practices pose a 'significant risk' to patients and will require physical inspections, following GP registration in 2013. GP Online

Forty CSOs to support new NHS

Forty CSOs to support new NHS: The majority of primary care trust clusters are planning to set up their own commissioning support organisations for clinical commissioning groups, it has been reported. E-Health Insider

Update on whistleblowing, NMC and National Commissioning Board

Update on whistleblowing, NMC and National Commissioning Board: Dean Royles has written to HR directors in the NHS with an update on recent publications from the GMC, the strategic review of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and advance reports on the proposed structure for the National Commissioning Board. NHS Employers

A strategic review of the future healthcare workforce: informing medical and dental student intakes

A strategic review of the future healthcare workforce: informing medical and dental student intakes:

This report aims to provide a starting point to consider factors that may influence the requirements, numbers and proportions of the future medical workforce.

• Report


• Centre for Workforce Intelligence - publications

NHS property company announced

NHS property company announced: Andrew Lansley formally announces details of government-owned firm that will take over the NHS estate. Healthcare Today

Planning service delivery

Planning service delivery: NICE commissioning guides offer support on cost-effective commissioning and service configuration. Our costing tools and forward planner help estimate the local cost of implementing guidance.

UK Hospitals Breach Drug Storage Security - Sky News

UK Hospitals Breach Drug Storage Security - Sky News:

Sky News

UK Hospitals Breach Drug Storage Security Sky News A third of NHS trusts surveyed had audits showing that either medicines were not locked away; missing drugs were unaccounted for or medications were administered by unauthorised staff. They research uncovered that on a ward in Mid-Essex, ...

NHS: learning from the high street on patient feedback

NHS: learning from the high street on patient feedback:

The health service needs to take a new approach – retailers are wary of boring their customers, so hospitals should be too

From in-store questionnaires to online surveys, giving feedback is an accepted part of our high street shopping experience. Retailers dedicate a huge amount of effort and money towards finding out our views on every aspect of a visit to their stores because it provides managers with crucial information to make improvements that keep them ahead of their competitors.

But in the NHS there is a public and clinical suspicion that answering patient surveys is a fast-track way to file unread feedback into a hospital cabinet; this perception needs to change.

The government's focus on patient choice means that hospitals have to check whether patients are satisfied with the quality of their service as much as retailers do. Otherwise we risk missing out on the patient feedback-led improvements that help prevent serious breakdowns in clinical care.

I work for a company that provides feedback solutions to both hospitals and the high street. This organisation takes customer experience models it has developed from longstanding relationships with multimillion pound businesses, such as Argos, and applies them to the health sector.

This work is supported by my four years' experience as a mental health nurse in the NHS where I saw first-hand how hard it is to implement new ways of doing things onto a ward from a management directive. But some of the greatest mistakes made by hospitals happen even before a response is collected.

Too often, hospitals create questionnaires that capture information that is useless in driving service improvements. The retail sector, on the other hand, is fully aware that to gather feedback it is asking customers to donate their own time. So realises that every second should be put to best use.

Demographic questions are a prime example of poor questioning in the NHS. It seems natural to ask identifiers such as age or gender, but I often challenge hospitals whether this will yield any useful data. Unless you can identify a clear reason to identify a certain group for the sample there may be little or no point. Especially when this information may be available through other hospital data systems.

Instead, questions must be geared towards the things that matter most to customers (or in this case patients) and to areas that can actually be improved upon, if and when shortcomings are identified. There is no magic formula, nor a perfect set of questions for every hospital. But if the answers cannot feed directly into an action plan for improvements then they may not be worth asking.

In his article on the Guardian Healthcare Network, Stephen Dunn advocates the power of the of the "net-promoter" question: "Would you recommend us to friends and family?" He makes a good case, but I would argue that there is a healthy middle ground between this simple, but limited, litmus test and the plethora of questions we see in many NHS surveys.

Retailers are wary of boring their customers, so hospitals should be too. Even if feedback is being given in the middle of a four-hour wait in A&E, patients' time should never be taken for granted.

Once the right type and number of questions are in place, the real work begins. As information streams in from the wards the biggest challenge is turning the data into meaningful actions. For this to happen hospitals need to encourage two fundamental changes to their cultures.

First, patients' experiences need to be treated as real-time data not as material for a retrospective evaluation. News that there's been a sudden dip in standards of care in a certain ward, for instance, should not be filed away until the next board meeting. Second, this information needs to be acted upon immediately.

In our work with Argos we collect and process over 150,000 pieces of individual feedback a week. This is useful for understanding long-term trends, but at its most powerful when treated as a stream of information that staff react to continuously. For example, an Argos store tracking its daily feedback realised that satisfaction levels dropped between 1pm and 2pm, identified that this was when managers tended to take their lunch break and was promptly able to increase staffing levels at this time.

This first cultural change for the NHS will take time, but can only emerge in conjunction with the second. Staff at all levels need to be engaged with the feedback process, not just management. Nurses, healthcare assistants and doctors should know how to check how satisfied patients were in a particular shift, for example. This is a tool for ward and board.

There is much for the NHS to learn about patient experience, but though it currently lags behind other sectors, there should also be a great deal of optimism. While people might not have a vested interest in the success of one private retailer over another, people genuinely care about making the NHS better. Hospitals that use handheld feedback devices, kiosks and online surveys will attest that there is no shortage of opinions on wards and in waiting rooms. There is a wealth of useful patient data ready to be collected for those who ask the right questions and make the most of the answers.

Samantha Hewlett is account manager for Customer First Solutions and Patient Focus

This article is published by Guardian Professional.

Andrew Lansley: I won't cave in on NHS reform

Andrew Lansley: I won't cave in on NHS reform: Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, has vowed not to "cave-in" over health reforms in a speech in which he compared himself to Aneurin Bevan. The Daily Telegraph

Care home neglect 'not picked up by hospitals'

Care home neglect 'not picked up by hospitals': Hospitals should check every elderly patient for signs of neglect on admission, health ministers will be told on Friday. The Daily Telegraph

PIP founder Jean-Claude Mas charged over breast implant scare

PIP founder Jean-Claude Mas charged over breast implant scare: A French judge on Friday charged Jean-Claude Mas, the founder of the PIP breast implant company at the heart of a global health scare, with manslaughter, his lawyer said. The Daily Telegraph

Lansley tells BMA: stop spreading lies about my health reform Bill

Lansley tells BMA: stop spreading lies about my health reform Bill:
Andrew Lansley upped the stakes in his increasingly acrimonious dispute with the medical profession over the Health and Social Care Bill yesterday, accusing the British Medical Association (BMA) of having opposed "every important reform" back to the founding of the NHS more than 60 years ago. The Independent

More than half of A&E attendances stay for longer than two hours, say new figures from the NHS Information Centre

More than half of A&E attendances stay for longer than two hours, say new figures from the NHS Information Centre: More than half of A&E attendances involve patients staying more than two hours in the department – a higher percentage than the previous year. The fig...