Primary care trusts (PCTs) spend around 75 per cent of the NHS budget in England. How do they decide on their spending priorities? This paper examines the data collected by the Department of Health on the amounts PCTs spend on the 23 programmes of care based on medical conditions such ... and An update to the briefing "Local variations in NHS spending priorities" published in 2006.
Ensuring that you are measuring the things that matter most to patients is an essential component of a successful strategy for improving patients' experience. It is important to choose methods that are fit for purpose. This paper provides a brief guide to these to help trust boards and other interested ...
The pace of change and reform in the NHS has been relentless as government and those who work in the NHS seek ways to improve the service. The King's Fund set up an expert working group to examine how effective the current incentives were in achieving this aim. The group ...
In 2006 a pilot programme was launched in partnership with six NHS trusts, supported by their charities, and two Marie Curie Cancer Care hospices to improve Environments for Care at End of Life. The objective was to see whether the King's Fund run Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) could be ...
NHS spending in England may have more than doubled in real terms since 1999/2000, but the prospects for future funding now look bleak. Although there is consensus that the NHS faces a tough financial future, there is no agreement about just how cold the financial climate will be. Starting with ...
This review assesses how far the investment and accompanying reforms since 1997 have transformed the NHS in England into a high-performing health system. The review focuses on England because health policy has now diverged from that in the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It has drawn on ...
If the health of the population is to improve significantly, patients need to be engaged in managing their own health. The increase in availability of information, developments in new technology, and changes in public attitudes mean that patients want to interact differently with health services. These developments present a challenge ...
The government’s End of Life Care Strategy set out to improve the care that patients receive at the end of their life and to give them meaningful choice about where they are cared for and where they die. Implementation of the strategy has proved challenging, however, for a number of ...
Unhealthy behaviours - smoking, alcohol misuse, poor diet, lack of exercise - lead to ill health, with resulting costs to individuals, to the NHS and to society as a whole. PCTs are expected to commission support to help people change their behaviour to adopt healthier lifestyles - but what should ...
For the past three years patients referred by their GP for a specialist outpatient consultation have had a choice over where to be treated. As part of a larger research project, a survey was sent to patients in four case study areas of England to ask them about their experience ...