There are about 34,000 people resident in mental health facilities in England and Wales on any one day (Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection 2005) and many of them smoke. Most facilities allow smoking in a designated indoor area, thus exposing patients and staff to second-hand smoke. Smoking and exposure ...
In January 2006 the Department of Health published Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services. It is the government's seventh White Paper on health since coming to office in 1997 and, after several years of reform aimed at the acute hospital sector, it represents what ...
The 2006/7 Operating Framework, published at the end of January 2006, sets out the Department of Health's priorities for the NHS in England over the next financial year, a year which the document expects to be 'challenging'. It is aimed primarily at NHS managers and their counterparts in local government. ...
The NHS has rarely managed to balance its books exactly; in many years it has overspent, and in some it has carried a surplus. In the financial year 2005/6 it is likely to record a substantial overspend - in gross terms, around £900 million, equivalent to around £700 million net ...
The government's reforms of contracts and pay for NHS staff are designed not just to pay staff more but also to secure changes in working patterns and productivity that translate into benefits for patients. This paper assesses the impact of the new consultant contract in England. Its findings are based ...
Improving management of high cost patients, especially those with long term conditions, it is increasingly viewed as an important strategy for improving health outcomes and controlling health care expenditures. An essential component of any strategy to improve care and services for these patients is the development of a case finding ...
This paper is a response by the King's Fund to the report prepared by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, on medical regulation, entitled Good Doctors, Safer Patients, and the Department of Health's review on the regulation of non-medical health care professions.