Updated never events policy framework and data published

The never events policy framework has been reviewed and updated in order to address areas of uncertainty and provide greater clarity about never events and the recommended response to them following feedback from stakeholders.

Cold Weather Plan for England

The Cold Weather Plan 2012 provides advice for individuals, communities and agencies on how to prepare for and respond to severe cold weather.

Implementing emergency preparedness arrangements

This letter from the NHS Commissioning Board provides additional instructions and information to support implementing the revised emergency preparedness, resilience and response (EPRR) arrangements in the NHS.

Launch of the national capabilities survey 2012

Emergency planning officers and emergency planning liaison officers are advised of the launch of the national capabilities survey 2012. The survey applies to both category 1 and 2 health responders.

The Quarter

David Flory’s quarterly report for Q1 (April to June) 2012/13 provides a summary of the NHS financial position and performance against the national priorities set out in the NHS Operating Framework 2012/13.

Rethinking urgent care

This Primary Care Foundation report highlights that the significant queues some Urgent Care Centres allow to build up are often associated with a process described as "triage and wait" in which patients wait once to be prioritised and then wait again for a full consultation. The report urges urgent care centres to move to a “see and treat” model that is more effective at providing a rapid response.

In hospital at home: Redditch and Bromsgrove opens virtual ward

Redditch and Bromsgrove CCG have calculated that identifying and effectively managing patients at high risk of hospital admission using the virtual ward approach should largely wipe out a projected deficit for 2012/13 of £1.4m by reversing a rise in non-elective activity at its main acute provider.

A new approach to priority setting can improve patient care and save money

This report from the Health Foundation describes how NHS Sheffield used a new approach, called Star (‘socio-technical allocation of resources’), to re-allocate resources within its eating disorder services

Ten challenges in improving quality in healthcare: lessons from the Health Foundation’s programme evaluations and relevant literature

The authors of this study aimed to integrate lessons from evaluations of the Health Foundation’s improvement programmes with relevant literature to offer insights for those who undertake improvement work in healthcare. 10 key challenges were identified and suggestions made as to how best to respond to these challenges.

Design and Use of Performance Measures to Decrease Low-Value Services and Achieve Cost-Conscious Care

This paper provides specific examples of possible measures to assess use of low-value services and discusses how these measures can be used in clinical practice and policy.

Identifying “value opportunities”: service reviews and business process engineering

West Cheshire PCT and CCGs have used Right Care principles to identify “where to look” for service improvements that can generate savings for re-investment and service quality and outcomes improvements. They have combined the use of spend and outcome tools, analysis of variation and Programme Budgeting with Service Reviews and Business Process Engineering techniques to take reform, innovation and efficiency proposals through to successful delivery, generating £7m across three service areas in one wave of service reviews, as part of a successful £15m QIPP programme.

Right data, right payment: annual report on the Payment by Results data assurance programme 2011/12

The Audit Commission has published the key findings from the 2011/12 Payment by Results (PBR) data assurance programme. It assesses how well NHS trusts and foundation trusts have delivered on recommendations made in previous audits.

PCT CCG Spend and Outcome Factsheets and Tool (SPOT)

The latest version of SPOT (the Spend and Outcome Tool which enables commissioners to examine the relationship between expenditure and a range of health outcomes by disease area, now includes CCG level data. 

2011-12 programme budgeting guidance

Guidance documents for the 2011-12 programme budgeting data collection are now available.  It is aimed at supporting commissioners and NHS providers in completing their 2011-12 data return.

Quality profiles

These practice profiles enable commissioners to compare the relative quality of their providers, to enable providers to benchmark their performance against the national average, and to share with patients and the public information on the quality of the services being provided.

Preparations for winter planning and reporting set out

David Flory, Deputy NHS Chief Executive and Shaun Gallagher, Acting Director General, Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnerships have set out preparations for winter planning and reporting, which this year will run from 6 November to the end of February 2013.

Publication of organisation patient safety incident data

This latest data release includes details of patient safety incidents in England and Wales that occurred between 01 October 2011 and 31 March 2012 were submitted to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) by the end of May 2012.

Acute trust quality dashboards

Published quarterly by Midlands and East Quality Observatory (MEQO) the acute trust quality dashboards aim to show quality of care in a statistically sound but easy to understand way using a set of indicators that encompass a range of trust services.

NHS financial year 2011/12

Report summarising the findings from the 2011/12 audit of primary care trust (PCT), NHS trust and strategic health authority (SHA) accounts. 

Takeover: Tackling failing NHS hospitals

This report from Reform finds that the Government should drive the takeover of up to 30 NHS hospitals in this Parliament. Instead of encouraging mergers between failing NHS hospitals, private companies and the best NHS hospitals, should take over troubled hospitals because that is the surest way to turn them around.