“There are good business reasons to justify the need for commissioners and providers to invest more resource (time, money and training) in health information provision and support. These reasons include positive impacts on service use and costs, substantial capacity savings, significant returns on investment by increasing the self-management of long-term conditions and attracting customers.” p4

See: The Case for Information: Investment in patient information improves outcomes and reduces costs

The post Document of the Week (17th June): Making the Case for Information appeared first on NHS Right Care.

“Centrally sited on the RCP website, the Hub brings together a wealth of information to support the commissioning of secondary care services across medical specialties. In addition, the Hub reinforces the promotion of patient experience and education and training in commissioning decisions.”

See: New one-stop shop for RCP commissioning resources. Royal College of Physicians, 12th June 2013

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 “We believe that the best way to ensure that CCGs and others can secure the commissioning support services they need, is to have a resilient, cost-effective and vibrant market that enables access to best-in-class providers from the public, voluntary and independent sectors. Establishing such a market will require the systematic stimulation and development of the demand and supply sides so that customers are informed, capable and confident, and providers are commercially astute and responsive to customer needs. Buyers and sellers of commissioning support will need to be supported by efficient and effective market mechanisms ensuring easy access and genuine choice, fair competition, minimal transactional costs, and the effective management of transition through appropriate collaboration.” p4 of report

See: NHS England announces vision for future of commissioning support services. NHS England, 13th June 2013

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“Many people have placed great faith in the idea that integrated care can solve some of the most pernicious health issues of our time. With an ageing population and a dramatic increase in long-term conditions, it’s easy to see why co-ordinated care for patients could provide better health, care and value. However, it’s easy to confuse structural integration with what patients really want – personalised, high-quality, seamless care focused on their needs” taken from the article

See Patients need to be the focus of integrated care. Guardian 4th June 2013.

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 “Key messages

1. Healthcare commissioning has the potential to tackle inequalities in access, experiences and outcomes between ethnic groups. However, organisational cultures and structures frequently fail to support attention to ethnic diversity and inequality, while individual commissioners often do not recognise their responsibility, and lack the skills and confidence, to engage in this work.

2. Sustained and meaningful dialogue with both service providers and minority ethnic patients, carers and members of the public, can help to improve understanding of problems and find creative, viable solutions.

3. Effective mobilisation of wider evidence is essential. While accessing, interpreting and applying evidence on ethnic inequalities in health and healthcare is often challenging, there are robust strategies to address these issues, and commissioners can do more to access relevant sources and drive improvements in data collection and use.

4. Looking across the whole commissioning cycle, there are many missed opportunities to integrate attention to ethnic diversity and inequality. A range of stakeholders should be encouraged and equipped to both challenge and support commissioning organisations to take effective action on ethnic inequalities.” p1

See: High quality healthcare commissioning: obstacles and opportunities for progress on race equality. Better Health Briefing 28. Race Equality Foundation, June 2013

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“In summary, scheduled surgical admissions lead to high variability in day-to-day occupancy. Variation in scheduled admissions by day of week provides hospitals with an opportunity to address crowding without adding beds or delaying admissions. Increased functional capacity can be realized by smoothing occupancy over all days of the week. This smoothing could reduce the risk of high occupancy and thereby improve accessibility and patient/parent satisfaction. Hospitals that plan ahead and ensure a buffer for unscheduled admissions during days or months when that demand is known to rise could be less likely to cross into a crowded state. On the other hand, hospitals that do not anticipate increases in unscheduled admissions are more likely to encounter crowding and its negative consequences or underutilization of capacity. Designating specific surgical overflow units during the summer, shifting the admission of more short-stay patients to Mondays and Fridays, and increasing staffing and services on the weekend are all potential ways to address the challenges caused by uneven occupancy.” p569

See:  Scheduled surgery admissions and occupancy at a children’s hospital: variation we can control to improve efficiency and value in health care delivery. PubMed abstract. Ann Surg. 2013 Mar;257(3):564-70. This article is not freely available online, but may be available via NHS Athens or through your local NHS Library. To search for your nearest library, please see http://www.hlisd.org/

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See: Longer Lives. Public Health England, June 2013.

See also: Early deaths: Regional variations ‘shocking’ – Hunt. BBC news, 11th June 2013

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“There are two views of the data:

• The CCG outcomes tool allows users to view maps, charts and tables of individual outcome indicators across CCGs, and to view a spine chart of all the outcomes for one or more CCGs.
• The CCG outcomes explorer allows the user to explore the relationships between two outcomes or between demographic information and outcomes”

See: CCG outcomes tools. NHS England

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“Using the Procedures Explorer Tool, users are able to access further detailed information on the delivery of care across these pathways to see how individual commissioners and providers are performing against simple measures. This enables CCGs and providers to investigate and start a conversation to consider the local interpretation of information on variation.”

See: Procedures Explorer Tool. Right Care and Royal College of Surgeons., May 2013

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The article appears in the June edition of  Healthcare Finance  and for those who do not have an HFMA login a PDF of the article can be downloaded here.

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