Patient choice has been central to the government's recent NHS reforms, along with a new payment system that rewards hospitals that are attractive to patients. But will these reforms make services more responsive? In the treatment of HIV and AIDS, patients have always had a choice of which hospital to ...
This publication lays out the questions the government must answer if it wants to place patient choice at the heart of a taxpayer-funded health care system, including how extra costs will be met, whether patients are willing and able to exercise choice in their own best interests, and what kinds ...
In November and December 2012, The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust held a series of events in Parliament, to look beyond recent reforms and discuss the next wave of challenges facing the health and social care system.
This Viewpoint features personal reflections by eight of the parliamentarian speakers, based ...
The King’s Fund was commissioned by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust to work with their quality board to facilitate an assessment of its existing approaches to quality improvement and to develop a strategy for future work. This case study details the approach and philosophy behind this work, which involved working with ...
This report considers the role and value of volunteers in health and social care. It looks at the important part that volunteers play in improving patient experience, addressing health inequalities, and building a closer relationship between services and communities.
This report summarises the main findings of a project designed by the King's Fund to engage Londoners in a public debate around controversial issues arising from current public health strategies in the capital. The aims of the project were to: identify the means of eliciting values in a public debate; ...
Patient feedback is an important tool for tracking the experience of those who use NHS services and, through this, the quality of care they receive. It also plays a key role in identifying problem areas and shaping service improvements. Maternity services are using a variety of feedback mechanisms, in addition ...
Most formal care services for older people are funded by the public sector, but they are largely supplied by independent providers. This paper looks at what factors influence the 'mixed economy' of the care market, including what funding is available and from where, and how commissioning works, and the role ...
Increasing demands on general practice over the past five years - not just a heavier workload but the increasing complexity and intensity of work - have led to a feeling of crisis. The NHS is finding it difficult to recruit and retain sufficient GPs who want to do full-time, patient-facing ... and This report is accompanied by 'A day in the life of a GP'. This typical day in the life of a GP draws on the experiences of several GPs working in different practices who we spoke to as part of the research for this report. It has been reviewed by ...
Acquiring and ensuring a professional approach is a key part of becoming a doctor. But how can doctors define and adopt this professional attitude and ensure that it is kept up to date in the same way as their clinical skills? And how should professionalism adapt and change to reflect ... and This report summarises the discussions of 11 consultation events, ‘21st Century Doctor: Your future, your choices’, run from October 2009 to April 2010. An earlier series of events, ‘Do Doctors Have a Future?’ ran from May 2006 to April 2007
and looked at the way that doctors viewed the challenges ...