The need to wait for health care has been a feature of the NHS since its inception. When Labour came to power in 1997, total numbers of patients waiting stood at 1.3 million: the highest since the NHS began in 1948. The government announced its 'war on waiting' and pledged ...
The specific dynamics of the London health care labour market, and the challenges they create for recruitment and retention, were highlighted in the 2003 King's Fund report 'In Capital Health?'. In the 18 months since, a number of important and far reaching changes have been initiated across the NHS. This ...
NHS trusts spend about £500 million a year on food and catering. The government is committed to the economic, environmental, social and health benefits of sustainable food procurement, but this is difficult to translate into practice at a local level. In 2004 the Better Hospital Food Programme (BHFP) commissioned the ...
The primary task of the health service is to improve people's health. A fundamental goal within this is to improve patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). But, while measuring and monitoring many aspects of its performance, the NHS does not routinely measure the impact of its care on patients' HRQoL. ...
This independent audit was commissioned by the Sunday Times and is published with their kind permission. and The Labour Party came to power in 1997 promising to 'save' the NHS. Since then, it has found unprecedented increases in funding for the health service, but Prime Minister Tony Blair has emphasised that the extra money must be linked to a 'step-change' in reform. This reform has taken four ...
This research summary outlines recent King's Fund work on waiting times, supported by the Department of Health. The research set out to learn from three groups of hospitals: those that have proved able to sustain reductions in waiting times; those with variable performance and those with a poor record on ...
This report brings together the findings and conclusions from three strands of research that addressed different aspects of the main research topic, which is the identification of successful strategies for sustaining reductions in waiting times. They are: identifying successful strategies for sustaining reductions in waiting times; the impact of waiting ...