Tackling culture change to transform mental health services

Tackling culture change to transform mental health services I work as a consultant in the leadership and organisational development team at The King’s Fund, and for the past eight months have been on secondment at Forward Thinking Birmingham – an innovative mental health partnership seeking to transform mental health provision for young people. My role has involved supporting the organisation with team integration and culture change.

Traditionally, mental health services are delivered by Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) up until the age of 16 or 18 – or when a young person leaves school or college – at which point they’re expected to transition to adult mental health services. It’s long been recognised that this is a poor boundary for service transition, often having a further detrimental effect on mental health.

Enhancing junior doctors' lives

Enhancing junior doctors' lives A comprehensive report highlighting the progress made by Health Education England to enhance juniors doctors’ working lives. Health Education England

Information and digital technologies: clinical requirements 2020

Information and digital technologies: clinical requirements 2020 This report looks at the use of data and technology in healthcare and concludes that uptake has been slow. It finds that there is now an increasing focus on learning how to use technologies to improve delivery of care for patients. This document aims to ensure that clinical priorities are met and reflected at a national level. Academy of Medical Royal Colleges

NHS efficiency map

NHS efficiency map The HFMA and NHS Improvement have worked in partnership to update and revise the NHS efficiency map. The map is a tool that promotes best practice in identifying, delivering and monitoring cost improvement programmes in the NHS. The map contains links to a range of tools and guidance to help NHS bodies improve their efficiency. Healthcare Financial Management Association

Estimating the economic burden of respiratory illness in the UK

Estimating the economic burden of respiratory illness in the UK This report finds that lung disease costs the economy £11 billion every year. Of this, almost £10 billion is spent on direct costs to the NHS: GP appointments, time in hospital, treatments and medication. It calls for the government to support the first ever taskforce for lung health. British Lung Foundation

Should the NHS have its own tax?

Should the NHS have its own tax? The NHS in England is under financial pressure. There is an intensifying debate about whether more money is needed and if so how much.

Among the options being suggested is a dedicated tax for the health service - transparent, easily understandable and less prone to political interference, or so the theory goes. So how realistic might it be?

The ring-fencing of tax for a specific purpose is known as hypothecation. One example, though not technically a tax, is the television licence fee, which is a levy specifically to fund the BBC.

The idea of a hypothecated tax for health has been knocked back and forth between economists for many years. BBC News

Suicide rescue

Suicide rescue How are local communities helping to prevent suicides?

The eight miles of coastline in Brighton and Hove can be a treacherous place and Roger De Casanove and his seafront team are usually the first to identify someone in distress.

Equipped with quad bikes and a patrol vehicle, complete with basic medical kit, they can be anywhere on the seafront in less than eight minutes - much faster than an ambulance.

Roger has done the job for just a year but admits he has been "astounded" by how much of his time is spent preventing and dealing with suicides.

"Seeing someone in a state of hopelessness and despair is very hard.

"But, for me, it is being able to provide a service that can make a real difference to people in crisis," he says.

The seafront officers, who are responsible for everyone's safety along the coastline, have been trained specifically to respond quickly in these kinds of situations. BBC News

All Southern Health non-executive directors resign

All Southern Health non-executive directors resign All the non-executive directors of an NHS trust criticised for failing to properly investigate hundreds of deaths have resigned.

The four board members stood down ahead of a review of services at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, which is due to be published next week.

The trust came under fire after Connor Sparrowhawk drowned at its Slade House facility in Oxford.

Its boss Katrina Percy resigned in October amid public pressure.

Previous interim chairman Tim Smart also stood down after he was criticised for creating a new job for Ms Percy. BBC News

Prescriptions to rise by 20p in England

Prescriptions to rise by 20p in England The cost of an NHS prescription in England will increase by 20p to £8.60 from the start of April, the government has announced.

Health minister Philip Dunne said prescription charges were expected to rise "broadly in line with inflation".

In other parts of the UK, prescriptions are free.

The price of dental care will also increase, with the lowest-cost band one treatment rising by 90p and band three treatment increasing by £10.60. BBC News

See also:

• Statement to Parliament: NHS prescription charges from April 2017 Department of Health

Lack of skin specialists causes delays for acne patients, says dermatologist

Lack of skin specialists causes delays for acne patients, says dermatologist A leading dermatologist says a lack of trained skin specialists is having a huge impact on acne patients. BBC News

Google's Deepmind NHS deal 'inexcusable', says academic paper

Google's Deepmind NHS deal 'inexcusable', says academic paper Google’s DeepMind and the Royal Free London NHS deal to use patient data without explicit consent was "inexcusable", an academic paper has concluded in a damning report today.

In 2016, DeepMind announced its first major health project: a collaboration with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust – a large UK hospital organization – to assist in the management of acute kidney injury.

Initially received with great enthusiasm, the collaboration has suffered from a lack of clarity and openness, with issues of privacy and power emerging as potent challenges as the project has unfolded, noted the paper. The Register

See also:

• Google DeepMind and healthcare in an age of algorithms Health and Technology

Money earmarked for mental health diverted to balance NHS books

Money earmarked for mental health diverted to balance NHS books Letter from finance chief Paul Baumann says contingency of £800m will be used to offset hospital overspends

Ministers have been accused of breaking their promises on mental health after £800m earmarked to improve services was diverted to shore up hospitals’ finances. Continue reading... The Guardian 

See also:

• Yet again, vital funding for general practice being used to shore up hospitals, says RCGP Royal College of General Practitioners
• £800m care fund used to bail out debt-ridden hospitals The Daily Mail

I hate restraining mental health patients but often it's the only option

I hate restraining mental health patients but often it's the only option Sarah needed medication but could not see that she was unwell. Restraint in her case was planned and not some awful mistake

People imagine mental health nurses like me as kind and gentle, as mother figures in uniform. What they don’t see is the harm we do to our patients: we lock them away, we restrain them and we take away their freedom. We do this in line with the law and we firmly believe we are doing the right thing. We are not “nice”, but when I look at my colleagues, I see strong, selfless, determined heroes.

I wish I could offer service users something better: a peaceful outdoor space, their own room, something less clinical than easy wipe armchairs. Most of them do not even agree that they are unwell and this deeply felt sense of injustice permeates the ward. Continue reading... The Guardian

See also:

• End humiliating restraint of mentally ill people, say charities The Guardian

Constant restructuring of NHS is demoralising staff, survey finds

Constant restructuring of NHS is demoralising staff, survey finds Nonstop changes – including new STPs from April – partly responsible for difficulty in retaining hospital and clinic workers

The number of NHS reorganisations in recent years is a key reason for the health service’s struggle to retain staff, a poll has found.

The NHS has been struggling to meet rising demand with a chronic shortage of staff and the results of a survey, published on Friday, suggest that a feeling of constant upheaval is at least partially to blame. Continue reading... The Guardian

Wellcome Trust announces winners of its 2017 Image Awards

Wellcome Trust announces winners of its 2017 Image Awards The London-based Wellcome Trust has announced the winners of its Image Awards. The winning image shows a skeleton and depicts the experience of Crohn's disease. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Wellcome Image Awards 2017 Wellcome Trust

Number of patients forced to endure mixed sex wards rises 50 per cent

Number of patients forced to endure mixed sex wards rises 50 per cent The number of patients forced to endure mixed-sex wards has risen by 50 per cent in a year, despite Government manifesto pledges to end the practice, official statistics show.

Hospitals breached rules which are supposed to put men and women on separate wards on 1,750 occasions in January and February - compared to 1,164 breaches in the same period last year.

The official figures follow manifesto pledges in 2010 and 2015 which pledged to eliminate the practice.

Labour accused ministers of presiding over a “catastrophic collapse” of patient standards.

The statistics suggest record levels of hospital crowding in recent months have forced hospitals to place men and women in beds near each other. The Daily Telegraph

See also:

• Manifesto vows broken again and again as numbers surge The Daily Mail