Best Practice
Ideas to help you do your job more effectivelyBest Practice
How to improve staff collaboration and delivered integrated care
Collaboration and enabled leadership helped one trust achieve better integration of services, which ended up benefitting both the patients receiving care and the staff delivering it, writes Jane Wells.
How to prioritise disinvestment in support services
A tool to help assess disinvestment in support services can help organisations validate their difficult decisions in this area, as Marion Bain, Hester Ward and Simon Belfer explain.
How to create an organisational strategy to develop clinical leaders
A programme to engage senior staff with clinical leadership through assessment and development is creating a core group of strong clinical leaders at Salford Royal. Stephen Perry and David Wood explain the programme.
Why engaging staff is a critical component of hospital transformation
Transforming hospital services is a grand idea, but a major service redesign will not work without a strategy for staff engagement, say Jane Warder and Ian Hall.
Why taking a national approach could kick-start technology adoption in the NHS
High costs, complex planning and ‘pilot-itis’ are all common hurdles to technology adoption. Sally Chisholm argues a coordinated national approach could help overcome them.
How to improve patient satisfaction in maternity services
Daily conversations between managers and new mothers about their care are helping improve patient satisfaction and staff morale. Debby Gould and colleagues at University College London explain.
Solid foundations: how to lead successfully in the new foundation landscape
Life after authorisation will present new and unusual challenges for many foundation trust executives. Phil Kenmore and Simon Bird have four tips to help them with their survival - and look toward a successful future.
How CCGs can make savings in their prescription budget
Providing GPs with the right support on prescribing can realistically deliver savings for CCGs in their prescription budgets that could make a significant dent in an annual NHS spend of £8bn a year, says Claire Forde.
Developing a health and local government service integration model
Could one trust’s health and local government service integration be a model for the rest of the country to follow? Dr Chris Clayton reports on the successful pilot at Blackburn with Darwen PCT.
How to deliver a successful and sustainable hospital transformation
How do you deliver long term transformational change at your hospital when the immediate concern is short term cost improvement? McKinsey senior expert Neil Griffiths has some ideas.
Reaping joint benefits of streamlined hip and knee care pathways
One consortium’s approach to overhauling hip and knee care has brought efficiency and financial rewards while sparing patients from repeated trips to hospital. Debra de Silva and Sima Haririan explain.
The NHS trusts leading the way on sustainability and efficiency
A recent league table of over 2,000 UK businesses ranked four NHS trusts as the highest performing organisations. NHS Sustainable Development Unit director David Pencheon explains why other trusts must aim to emulate this success.
How a transformation programme helps improve community services' efficiency
A strategic transformation programme has helped a community provider reform and redesign its services and improve efficiency as a central part of its bid for foundation trust status. Jo Manley and Mark Eaton outline the programme.
How doctor-patient phone calls can cut unnecessary emergency care attendances
When GPs phone back patients who want to book an appointment, many often accept they do not need to visit the surgery or to go to A&E after all. Harry Longman explains the benefits this level of doctor access offers.
Why early discharge in stroke care can be vital for recovery
Home rehabilitation is a vital component of improving stroke care. Mirek Skrypak and colleagues explain how they have put it into practice in north London.
Developing a new care pathway to enhance responses to alcohol cases
Alcohol-related emergency care demand needs to be understood and managed if the number of cases is to be reduced, say James Bell and colleagues.
How service line management can inspire improved behaviours throughout NHS organisations
Service line management can empower frontline clinicians to make the changes the NHS needs for future viability. The big challenge is changing the way NHS organisations are managed, says Chris Calkin.
Developing leadership by managing unconscious behaviour
Improving leadership within an organisation through identifying our subconscious behaviour can galvanise a workforce and deliver better performance, write Nicholas Bradbury and Barbara Moyes.
Why trust procurement needs price comparison to be efficient
Barriers to comparative price information in the NHS make good judgement on procurement difficult for purchasers. The benefits outlined in a recent Foundation Trust Network pilot shows why this information needs to be easier to obtain, says Sue Slipman.
How specialist housing can improve the lives of older patients while cutting care costs
Specialist housing is an investment that could save the NHS millions a year and make lives happier, says Jeremy Porteus
Is the transfer of public health services a problem for professionals?
The transfer of public health services from the NHS to the local authority will mean many professionals are set for a stark self re-evaluation that could call into question their employment with the NHS, writes Simon Bird.
The quest for best practice: discovering and implementing new ideas in the NHS
Putting good ideas into practice in the NHS has been made easier by adapting the format of a successful TV programme. Alison Moore ventures into the dragons’ den to find out how.
Trust me, I'm a leader: creating a climate for higher performance
Managers will need to build a culture of mutual ownership and trust, rather than leading from the front, to affect the breadth of change to combat the cold economic front sweeping across the NHS, say John Drew and Helen Bevan.
Improving cardiac care for clinicians while reducing cost to the NHS
Can you improve patient cardiac care and working practice for GP clinicians while reducing the cost of cardiac care to the NHS? Dr Jonathan Lieberman explains how a telemedical ECG service has achieved this at his surgery in Manchester.
Setting out the principles for integrated care
Patient Voices policy director Don Redding outlines some principles that should guide commissioners, regulators and professional groups in integrating health and social care services.
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How a COPD care bundle is reducing readmissions
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Why a better understanding of emergency admissions needs better data
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The seven simple steps to support cost improvement plans
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Why the success of health and wellbeing boards depends on relationships
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Why resilience is key to leadership in a changed NHS
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From middle to higher ground: teaching the leaders of the future
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How to improve care standards for dementia patients
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Equipped for the future: the advantages of a long term technology plan
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How a holistic approach to healthcare drives better value
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PFI spy: how to make the most of private finance initiatives
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A blueprint to improve services for patients with hepatitis C
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Will Any Qualified Provider bring the private sector and the community together?
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Better buying: how to achieve value for money procurement
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How predictive modelling can help reduce risk, and hospital admissions
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How to coordinate integrated care across multidisciplinary groups
Your Ideas and Suggestions
Book Reviews
Book review: How to have Creative Ideas
NHS Trafford service reform lead Hannah Lowry reviews How to Have Creative Ideas by Edward de Bono, and asks whether it can help the NHS develop new solutions to old problems.
Book Review: The Terrible Leader
Independent business consultant Jeremy Kourdi reviews Dan White’s The Terrible Leader.
Book Review: The Innovator's Prescription
Maxine Miles, NHS graduate management trainee, reviews Clayton M Christensen’s Circle Prize winning book.
Book Review: 24 Hours to Save the NHS
Experienced NHS director and independent consultant Patrick Keady reviews Nigel Crisp’s new book 24 Hours to Save the NHS.
Book Review: The Economics of John Kenneth Galbraith: Introduction, Persuasion and Rehabilitation
Stephen Dunn is already a hero to health service reformers and to East of England patients for his work in East Anglia, which was not just about Hinchingbrooke, but a region-wide improvement in access and quality. Now he has also made a significant contribution to economic thinking.
Book review - Personal Health Records: a guide for clinicians
Dr Emma Stanton, Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow and specialist registrar at South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust, reviews Personal Health Records: a guide for clinicians by Mohammad Al-Ubaydli.
Book review: 2030 - The Future of Medicine
Some reading may be optional - but Richard Barker’s book 2030 - The Future of Medicine is essential. It is based on unusual joint experience - of the UK and the US systems and of health system with scientific research.
Labour’s ex-health minister calls for NHS price competition and more private provision
Health Policy Insight editor Andy Cowper reviews Lord Norman Warner’s new book A Suitable Case for Treatment – the NHS and reform.
