This paper was commissioned by The King's Fund to inform the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel and Pregnancy is a normal physiological process, and an important life and family event. There are many professionals involved in the care of pregnant women, their babies and their families, including obstetricians, anaesthetists, midwives and GPs. Today, there are two main models of care for pregnant women in the United Kingdom: ...
This Briefing explains the purpose and remit of the Commission. It will consider whether the post-war settlement, which established separate systems for health and social care, remains fit for purpose. What sets it apart from other reviews past and present is that it will fundamentally re-examine the terms of the ...
This paper attempts to highlight the principles that underpin the big society, outlines early examples of the thinking in emerging government policy, and suggests a range of questions for health policy makers.
Given the wide and persistent variation in spending on cancer services, this project aimed to identify and quantify sources of variation in primary care trust (PCT) cancer spending and provide PCTs and cancer networks with a systematic way of framing decisions about the appropriate share of their total budgets to ...
WSD Action Network has been commissioned by the Whole System Demonstrator Programme at the Department of Health and through the Department of Health’s Policy Research Programme. The Network is hosted by The King's Fund and DH Care Networks on behalf of the Department of Health. and This paper, the second in a series of WSDAN briefing papers, provides guidance about how to carry out good-quality evaluations of telecare and telehealth interventions. We
identify different types of evaluations, and briefly review the evidence from systematic reviews of telecare and telehealth to illustrate key issues to be addressed ...
European patients may seek publicly funded health care abroad within Europe in various circumstances – as tourists requiring urgent care; when living and working abroad; or by travelling especially to receive care. A draft European Union (EU) Directive, currently the subject of debate between the Council of
Ministers and the ...
General practice plays a central role in ensuring patients receive a timely and accurate diagnosis, either directly from a GP or from an appropriate specialist as a consequence of a GP referral. Failure, or delay, in correctly identifying and referring patients who need secondary care can have profound clinical consequences. ... and This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the panel of the Inquiry into the Quality of General Practice in England. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel.
Intermediate care is the term used for the range of short-term, patient-focused services designed to promote and maintain the independence of older people otherwise facing inappropriate admission to hospital, long-term care or prolonged stays in hospitals. This new and evolving concept has attracted widespread interest. Practitioners are at many different ...
The financial pressures in the NHS are being felt particularly harshly by acute hospital trusts. A number of trusts and foundation trusts have been rated as at financial risk, and some trusts have declared themselves not financially sustainable as currently configured. These trusts will therefore not be able to achieve ...