House of Commons - Health Committee: After Francis: Making A Difference - HC 657 PDF Download

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215062345
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
The NHS needs to be an organization in which an open dialogue about care quality is part of the natural culture of the organization, not a duty which only arises in cases of service failure. Robert Francis made 290 recommendations in his report, but in truth they boil down to just one - that the culture of 'doing the system's business' is pervasive in parts of the NHS and has to change. Many who raise their concerns in the NHS at present risk serious consequences for their employment and professional status. But disciplinary procedures, professional conduct hearings and employment tribunals are not the proper place for honestly-held concerns about patient safety and care quality to be aired constructively. The NHS standard contract imposes a duty of candour on all NHS providers. This is an essential principle, but it is not adequately understood or applied. It should mean that all providers create a culture which is routinely open both with their patients and their commissioners. The same principle should apply to commissioners so that they are routinely open and accountable to local communities. The Health Committee recommended this approach in 2011 and repeats that now. It should be a prime role of the CQC to encourage the development of this culture within care providers, and of NHS England to develop the same culture within commissioners. The Health Committee will in future work closely with the Professional Standards Authority to develop the accountability process for professional regulators in healthcare

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215073053
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
A draft Law Commission Bill on the regulation of health and social care professions sets out the framework for a negative register, but it was not included in the Queens' Speech either as a draft or a substantive Bill. The Government needs to set out what changes to the powers of regulators it is planning to make through secondary legislation instead. Following up themes in the Francis report, regulators need to be visible and accessible to registrants, and also to patients and members of the public who wish to raise concerns about patient safety. Since 2003, the HCPC has recommended that statutory regulation be extended to a further eleven professions from the current sixteen. Of these, the only groups to receive statutory regulation to date are operating department practitioners and practitioner psychologists [the other groups are Clinical Perfusion Scientists, Clinical Physiologists, Dance Movement Therapists, Clinical Technologists, Medical Illustrators, Maxillofacial Prosthetists & Technologists, Sports Therapists, Sonographers and Genetic Counsellors]. The HCPC should list any professional groups for which they feel there is a compelling patient safety case for statutory regulation so that this can be pursued with the Department of Health as a matter of urgency. There is also concern at the length of time it can take for professional groups to gain statutory regulation. Given that new groups can be added to the HCPC's register by means of secondary legislation, there should be no undue delay in extending statutory regulation to professional groups where there is a compelling patient safety case for doing so

Author: Exworthy, Mark
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447330226
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
An in-depth analysis of the NHS reforms ushered in by UK Coalition Government under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Essential reading for those studying the NHS, those who work in it, and those who seek to gain a better understanding of this key public service.

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215069795
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
This year's inquiry into the work of Monitor concludes that the model of care provided by the health and care system is not changing quickly enough with the result that pressures continue to build, threatening the financial stability of individual providers, and therefore the quality of care provided The pressures are likely to be particularly marked in the acute sector as plans are prepared and implemented to achieve the resource transfer required by the introduction of the Better Care Fund from April 2015. Continuing this theme, the Committee argues that as the NHS financial situation tightens, the challenge for Monitor in supporting trusts in financial difficulty is likely to increase. The MPs emphasise the importance of addressing pressures within individual providers in the context of the local health economy. The requirement for major change in the care model can only be delivered if individual providers, and Monitor as their regulator, look beyond preserving existing structures and address the need to develop different structures to meet changing needs. The Committee also expresses concern that Monitor has not done enough to reform the system of tariff payments for providers, arguing that the current tariff arrangements often create perverse incentives for providers and inhibit necessary service change. It recommends that Monitor and NHS England should initiate a formal joint process for a prioritised review of the NHS tariff arrangements with the objective of identifying and eliminating perverse incentives and introducing new tariff structures which incentivise necessary service change

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215063298
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description
In April 2010 Dr David Bennett was appointed as interim Chief Executive of Monitor and then as Chair in March 2011. He was appointed permanent Chief Executive of Monitor with effect from 1 November 2012, while remaining as Chair pending a new appointment. On 10 October 2013, the Secretary of State proposed to appoint Dominic Dodd as Chair of Monitor. Dr Bennett has filled the roles of both Chair and Chief Executive - effectively Executive Chair - and has led Monitor through the whole process of change brought about by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. He has both shaped and interpreted the role that Monitor now plays in the system which makes the transition to another individual taking on the Chair an especially difficult one. On this basis the Committee did not endorse Mr Dodd's appointment

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215065841
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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In this report the Health Committee welcomes improvements in the performance of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) over the last year, but expresses continuing concern that the progress made so far remains fragile. The Committee emphasises that it is important to ensure that the new challenges facing the NMC do not become a distraction from the continuing requirement to improve its performance of its core functions. The report is the first example of a Health Committee review of a professional regulator which builds on the work of the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). The length of time the NMC takes to conclude its fitness to practise cases has been an enduring concern for the Committee. From 2015, the NMC proposes to toughen the target period for resolving fitness to practise cases to 15 months (eventually to 12 months). The NMC has announced plans to introduce a system of revalidation by the end of 2015 which is welcomed. The Francis Report into the failings at Mid Staffs examined the role of regulators, including the NMC, in detail. The report stresses the importance of ensuring firstly that registrants understand their professional obligation to raise concerns when they see evidence of poor patient care, and secondly that patients and public are made more aware of the role of the NMC as the regulator of professional and clinical standards. The NMC should take urgent steps to raise the profile of the NMC both among its registrants and among patients and public.

Author: Jeffrey Braithwaite
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472451422
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
This book offers a global perspective on healthcare reform and its relationship with efforts to improve quality and safety. It looks at the ways reforms have developed in 30 countries, and specifically the impact national reform initiatives have had on the quality and safety of care. It explores how reforms drive quality and safety improvement, and equally how they act to negate such goals. Every country included in this book is involved in a reform and improvement process, but each takes place in a particular social, cultural, economic and developmental context, leading to differing emphases and varied progress. Methods for tackling common problems - financing, efficiencies, effectiveness, evidence-based practice, institutional reforms, quality improvement, and patient safety initiatives - also differ. Representatives from each nation provide a chapter to convey their own situation. The editors draw a conclusion from these numerous contributions and synthesize the themes emerging into a coherent ‘lessons learned’ summary that delivers value to the numerous stakeholders. Healthcare Reform, Quality and Safety forms a compendium of the current ‘state of the art’ in global healthcare reform. This is the first book of its type, and offers a unique opportunity for cross-fertilization of ideas to the mutual benefit of countries involved in the project. The content will be of interest to governments, policymakers, managers and leaders, clinicians, teaching academics, researchers and students.

Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215070577
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
GMC's fitness to practise successfully produces outcomes that protect patients from sub-standard doctors but failures to communicate the reasons for decisions and poor investigative practices have undermined a small number on investigations. The GMC should review its fitness to practice procedures to prevent such mistake. The Committee also found that while it is still too early to judge whether revalidation has been effective there is a worrying approach to the oversight of revalidation. Each designated body has a responsible officer for revalidating their medical staff, but the degree to which the responsible officer will be held to account is unclear. It is imperative that the GMC clarifies the personal responsibility and accountability of responsible officers. There is also concern over the number of responsible officers available to oversee the revalidation of doctors working in primary care. GPs are revalidated not by their own employers but by one of the 27 NHS England local area teams that oversees Clinical Commissioning Groups in England. Just 27 responsible officers will be tasked with overseeing revalidation for approximately 45,0000 GPs in England. The Government's intention had been to give the GMC the power to allow it to appeal decisions made by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in 2014 by using a mechanism in secondary legislation called a section 60 order. The Government now plans to introduce the reform in primary legislation as part of a proposed Law Commission Bill thus meeting with even further delay

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215084713
Category : Diet therapy
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
Diet, obesity, and physical activity all have important impacts on health. For too long however, physical activity has been seen merely in the light of its benefits in tackling obesity. A core message from this inquiry is the compelling evidence that physical activity in its own right has huge health benefits totally independent of a person's weight. The importance of this - regardless of weight, age, gender or other factors - needs to be clearly communicated. Interventions focused on encouraging individuals to change their behaviour with regard to diet and physical activity need to be underpinned by broader, population-level measures. Whilst both are important, population-level interventions have the advantage of impacting on far greater numbers than could ever benefit from individual interventions. The Committee recommends that the next Government prioritises prevention, health promotion and early intervention to tackle the health inequalities and avoidable harm resulting from poor diet and physical inactivity. The Committee regards it as inexplicable and unacceptable that the NHS is now spending more on bariatric surgery for obesity than on a national roll-out of intensive lifestyle intervention programmes that were first shown to cut obesity and prevent diabetes over a decade ago. All tiers of weight management services should be universally available and individual clinicians should use every opportunity to help their patients to recognise and address the problems caused by obesity and poor diet, and to promote the benefits of physical activity.

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215081080
Category : Complaints (Administrative procedure)
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Most of those who complain about NHS services do not seek financial redress. They do so because they wish to have their concerns and experiences understood and for any failings to be acknowledged and put right so that others do not suffer the same avoidable harm. Where such errors occur, patients and their families deserve to be met with a system which is open to complaints, supports them through the process and which delivers a timely apology, explanation and a determination to learn from mistakes. The current system for complaints handling however, remains variable. Too many complaints are mishandled with people encountering poor communication or at worst, a defensive and complicated system which results in a complete breakdown in trust and a failure to improve patient safety. The Committee welcomes the progress made since their last report, but in this, the Committee's final report on complaints and concerns in this Parliament, an overview is set out of the developments and recommendations to date as well as those expected in 2015. The Committee also makes a number of recommendations where further action is required.