• Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Commissioning Toolkit
• CSIP Better Commissioning programme
• New NICE Commissioning guides: Cognitive behavioural therapy and Faecal continence service
• West Kent PCT: World Class Commissioning strategy and delivering a commissioning model
• National Cancer Intelligence Network
• Commissioning Specialist Library: Have you say
• A resource to help primary care pharmacists in England involved in PBC
• Revised guidance: primary care dental contracts Advice on managing end of year issues
• Other documents, websites and conferences

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The NHS Next Stage Review has been led locally by clinicians in each NHS region. Seventy-four local clinical working groups, made up of some 2000 clinicians, have been looking at the clinical evidence and engaging with their local communities. They have developed improved models of care for their regions to ensure that the NHS is up to date with the latest clinical developments and is able to meet changing needs and expectations.

NHS Next Stage Review Leading Local Change sets the context for these local visions and the principles which will guide their implementation.

Changing for the Better provides best practice guidance on provide clear guidance for patients, the public and NHS staff on the processes underpinning changes to acute NHS services arising from the NHS Next Stage Review.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (the Committee) published its report ‘A life like any other? human rights of adults with learning disabilities’ on 6 March 2008. This memorandum sets out the government response response to the conclusions and recommendations in that report.

The Evaluation of Early Medical Abortion (EMA) Pilot Sites - final report has been heavily reported in the mass media today.  It was commissioned by the Department of Health to assess the safety, effectiveness and acceptability of early medical abortions (EMAs) in non-traditional settings, and to help establish a protocol to cover the elements and processes required for the delivery of a safe EMA service in non-traditional settings.

Conclusions

• Subject to the fairly considerable limitations of the current study, and from a range of
  sources, including medical records, and staff and client views, there are no discernible
  differences between the pilot sites and their matched comparator sites in terms of the safety,
  effectiveness or acceptability of non-traditional sites for the administration of early medical
  abortions.

• Detailed protocols and guidelines should be developed to cover staffing requirements as well
  as clinical aspects of care.

• Given the importance of reassurance and support throughout the process, the centrality of
  suitably motivated and skilled nursing staff to any expansion of EMA provision cannot be
  overestimated.

The revised Code of Practice Mental Health Act has been prepared in accordance with section 118 of the Mental Health Act 1983 by the Secretary of State for Health after consulting such bodies as appeared to him to be concerned, and laid before Parliament. The Code will come into force in November 2008.

The House of Commons Health Committee: Modernising Medical Careers: Third Report of Session 2007–08: Volume I Report, together with formal minutes states the government had provided “inadequate leadership” however it also idenitfies that doctors were more concerned with factional interests than the common good.

This follows publication of the Tooke Report Aspiring to Excellence: Final report of the Independent Inquiry into Modernising Medical Careers which we posted about earlier in the year with the final report, the draft report and the government response.

Summary Care Record Early Adopter programme: An independent evaluation by University College London (Executive Summary) has found found that although the SCR offers real benefits for treating patients in emergency and unscheduled care settings, the ‘complicated’ technical system needs to be refined before being rolled out. NHS staff and patients are positive in regards to the programme, with most people valuing the benefits of instant access to medical records over the small risk of data loss or breach.

The addendum guidance sets out the process for assurance of the delivery of the capital development programme for inpatient and residential substance misuse (drug and alcohol) services 2007/08 and 2008/09, including guidance on the reallocation of funds. The National Treatment Agency (NTA) via Regional Forums is managing this process.

The Common core principles to support self care have been developed by Skills for Health and Skills for Care with key stakeholders, including service users and carers, to develop a set of common core principles to support self care. The principles capture best practice in order to enable service reform and encourage choice, control, independence and participation of those using health and social services.

Making the connections: using healthcare professionals to deliver organisational improvements aims to help the NHS understand how Non-Medical Prescribing can help to deliver services, the Department of Health commissioned Primary Care Contracting to produce 6 Nurse Prescribing and 6 Pharmacist Prescribing case studies.  Many nurse and pharmacist independent prescribers manage their own caseloads including in dedicated clinics - helping patients to manage long-term conditions’ or by treating one-off episodes of care in GP Practices or in Walk-in Centres and in Accident and Emergency Departments.

Guidance provided in January 2007 (Gateway reference 7719) has been updated to reflect comments from the NHS and to clarify expectations for the end of the financial year. The guidance is now generic and does not relate to any one year in particular.

This note provides advice for SHAs to share with PCTs on year end performance issues, including:

• arrangements for carrying forward any under-delivered services within the 4% tolerance allowed for within dental contracts
• working with dental providers to ensure, as far as possible, that an even pattern of service is delivered throughout the contract year, and any early completion of contracted activity is managed

Guidance on transfers between places of safety provides information on the use of SI(2008)800 Mental Health Act 2007 (Commencement No. 5 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2008. Which brings section 44 of the Mental Health Act 2007 (the 2007 Act) on places of safety into effect on 30 April 2008.

Under sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (the 1983 Act) a police officer may remove a person who is believed or appears to be suffering from a mental disorder to a place of safety. Section 44 of the 2007 Act amends these sections of the 1983 Act to allow a person to be taken from one place of safety to one or more other places of safety during the 72 hour maximum overall period during which they may be detained under either of these two sections. They may be taken between places of safety by a police officer, an approved social worker (until approved social workers are replaced in this role by approved mental health professionals in due course) or someone authorised by either of them.

The Statement of Financial Entitlements (Amendment) (No 2) Directions 2008 were signed on 21 April 2008 and come into effect from 1 April 2008. The Directions amend Section 7C to roll forward the existing IM&T DES to allow PCTs to continue to make payments until 31 March 2009.

Regeneration in European cities: Making connections is a study of successful urban regeneration schemes in mainland Europe to draw lessons for the UK from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

It compares regeneration at Norra Alvstranden in Gothenburg; Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam; and Roubaix in Metropolitan Lille making comparisons with similar places in the UK (Gateshead, North Southwark, and Bradford).

An extensive literature review identifies where the UK might learn from Europe. Each case study:

• sets the context;
• assesses actions and achievements;
• looks at benefits for vulnerable groups;
• sets out the main elements of the scheme;
• includes reactions from UK partners; and
• outlines implications for UK policy.

Our server is being moved on Friday from the data centre in London to Hannover. This will not impact this blog but will mean the Fade wesbite has an expected downtime between 6.00 pm Friday 25th and 6.00 pm Saturday 26th. We apologise for any inconvenience that this causes you.

Each year, the Government decides how much to raise benefits and tax allowances. The basis for these upratings is rarely debated, yet has major long-term consequences for the relative living standards of different groups and for public finances. The impact of benefit and tax uprating on incomes and poverty from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation considers the implications of present uprating policies, which mean that some parts of the tax and benefit system are uprated by earnings growth, other parts by prices and some not at all.

The impact of continuance of these polices over the newxt 20 years will be a doubling of the child poverty rate alongside a substantial gain to the public finances. Some of this budgetary gain may be needed to meet other demands – of an ageing population for example – but the cost falls disproportionately onto poorer groups and could be raised more fairly.

• Allogeneic pancreatic islet cell transplantation for type 1 diabetes mellitus
• Intraoperative red blood cell salvage during radical prostatectomy or radical cystectomy
• Interstitial photodynamic therapy for malignant parotid tumours
• Perioperative hypothermia (inadvertent)
• Ulcerative colitis - infliximab
• Abatacept for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

Residents’ views of new forms of high density affordable living from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation explores residents’ views about living in new affordable higher density housing and how far residents’ expectations of living in high-density developments were met. In particular it explores:

• reasons for moving in;
• the impact of architecture and design;
• community cohesion, including integration across tenures;
• crime and antisocial behaviour;
• the impact of the surrounding neighbourhood;
• future housing aspirations, including whether residents wanted to move;
• housing management;
• affordability.

Patient Experience Scores for the PSA target – April 2008 updates the patient experience scores published on 29 January 2007. They include scores derived from survey results published by the Healthcare Commission for 2006/07. There are new data points for ‘adult inpatients’ and ‘community mental health’ in 2006/07. These figures report on progress against the PSA target for sustained improvement in patient experience.

• The overall patient experience score for adult inpatients in 2006/07 has increased slightly to 76.4 from the score of 76.2 in 2005/06. The score is 0.7 points higher than in the earliest fully comparable year of 2003/04 (75.7).
• The overall patient experience score for community mental health services in 2006/07 has increased to 75.2, up 0.7 points from the score of 74.5 in 2005/06. 
• Scores for ‘involvement in decisions about healthcare’ cannot be compared across sectors.  The baseline scores for emergency services (2004/05) is 77.1.  The baseline score for outpatients (2004/05) is 81.7.  For adult inpatients, the latest score of 70.9 is unchanged from 2003/04.  Results for community mental health services show a slight increase to 63.7 in 2006/07 (from 63.3 in 2003/04) whilst primary care results are slightly lower at 81.9 in 2005/06, compared to 82.1 in 2003/04
• The baseline score for ‘choice of provider’ is 27.3 from the 2005/06 DH survey of PCTs.  This score represents the baseline position in the last year before the choice of provider policy was introduced.