The coalition government has made clear its commitment to the integration of health and social care in its proposals for reform. In the context of the intense financial and demographic challenges facing both health and social care, this paper offers a fresh assessment of the prospects for integrating health and ...
Integration of health and social care is a core policy aim of the new coalition government in England. It has several benefits for patients, particularly older people and those with long-term conditions. But how does integration work in practice? This paper sets out how one particular area – Torbay – ...
The aim of this paper is to describe the different forms of integrated care and to summarise evidence on their impact. The paper is based on a major review published by The King’s Fund and has been prepared in the light of the increased interest in integrated care arising out ...
This report was commissioned by The King’s Fund on behalf of an independent panel. The views expressed in this report are those of the independent panel and do not necessarily
represent the views of The King’s Fund and General practice is often regarded as the bedrock of the English health care system. Surveys consistently report high levels of trust in GPs and good levels of patient satisfaction with the services they receive in general practice. However, other than data available through the Quality Outcomes Framework and the GP ...
When it came to power in 1997 the Labour government committed to reducing health inequalities, and made extra funding available to those primary care trusts (PCTs) in areas of the country with the worst health and deprivation indicators (Spearhead areas). The General Medical Services contract introduced a pay-for-performance scheme known ...
Cancer survival rates in England are improving, but they still lag behind those in the best-performing countries in the world. The current government has identified cancer survival rates as an area for improvement and the cancer strategy commits to saving an additional 5,000 lives by 2015, but how can these ...
As part of its work on the pressures faced by the NHS, The King’s Fund published its first Quarterly Monitoring Report in April this year. This is the third report and it aims to provide a
regular update on how the NHS is coping as it tackles the evolving reform ...
Many NHS hospitals will struggle to deliver productivity improvements essential to maintaining quality and avoiding significant cuts to services, according to our latest quarterly monitoring report. This is the second quarterly monitoring report produced by the Fund as we aim to provide a regular update on how the NHS is ...
Over the next few years the NHS faces two unprecedented challenges: coping with the tightest funding settlement for decades and implementing top-to-bottom reforms of the system. The broad goal of both the productivity and reform challenges is to improve NHS performance and hence the quality of patient care. But both ...
This guide sets out some basic facts on the health of England's population, including the main drivers of health, how it varies and is expressed in inequalities, and relevant comparisons with other countries.