In 1977 an exploration into the use of counselling of visually impaired adult persons began in Richmond Adult College, Surrey, where it continued for 2 years. It moved to the ophthalmic department, King's College Hospital in 1980 and continued until 1987. The author formed a group in Richmond for people ...
In 1988 the King's Fund covered a multi-disciplinary panel to consider the following questions and to prepare a statement for discussion at a consensus conference: is there scientific evidence that ICUs cause a decrease in morbidity and mortality; what criteria should be set for admission and discharge to intensive care ...
This paper looks at the attitudes and behaviour in seeking health care of all the general medical practitioners in one family practitioner area - Avon. The results show that this group of doctors find difficulty in receiving help from other doctors, particularly for conditions to which doctors are most susceptible. ...
Rising health care costs now confront policy makers and planners with serious dilemmas of choice. This publication seeks to help formulate principles by which choices can be made. It begins with the premise that health demands will outstrip available resources, but argues that this should not mean that every allocation ...
The report attempts to review the main issues surrounding the funding and management of units providing dialysis services to people suffering from end-stage renal failure in the UK for the benefit of health service managers, renal physicians and other staff. The objective is to review the experience and information currently ...
This book describes in detail the routine administrative tasks that have to be done in hospital after a patient dies and suggests systems which will ensure that the tasks are carried out efficiently. It lays down clear standards for bereavement officers and hospital staff to enable them to provide the ...
This book is described as being a 'reflective tour of where the NHS is coming from, the world it is likely to face in the 1990s, and some ways in which we could strengthen it'. It covers demography, social and environmental stress, medical developments, public expenditure constraints, and likely themes ...
This second edition reflects the significant growth in quality assurance activity, and an increased willingness to share experience and expertise amongst those involved in the field. The directory covers the 192 DHAs in England, and provides comprehensive data from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. It includes a barchart comparing the ...
In this book, top clinicians and senior managers in health services from the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand write about their experiences in solving difficult problems in a way that ensures that their organisations continue to strive towards quality services. They describe how they try to resolve ...
This history begins with the foundation of the Lancet in 1823, and ends in 1982 with the restructuring of the National Health Service, when the management of hospitals in isolation from other health services had ceased. The opening chapters consider the endowed and voluntary hospitals, the poor law infirmaries and ...
The care given to a random sample of adults who died in 1987 is described retrospectively by relatives and others who had known them. Most praised, or were satisfied with, the care given by general practitioners but both the statistics and the quotations reveal some disconcerting inadequacies in this care, ...
This book is an account of the St. Christopher's Hospice Bereavement Service given by the volunteer visitors. It describes one of the important services developed by the hospice in the care of the dying and the continued care of the bereaved. It is hoped that it will be a guide ...
This publication consists of a check list for ensuring that telephonists, receptionists and hall or gate porters are able to give a service which maintains the good reputation of a hospital.
This report is an evaluation of a ten week scheme by two artists in residency at St John's Hospice, Lancaster. It assesses the effect, beneficial or otherwise, the scheme had on the patients, staff and visitors at the hospice. The report explains the background to the project, then describes the ...
This report summarises the literature on geographical variations in hospital admission rates in the UK and internationally. It is restricted to studies of inpatient admissions. It concludes that the examination of the variations provides invaluable insights into the nature and extent of medical uncertainty, and that this information is essential ...
The Health Advisory Service has been operating for almost 20 years. This is the first detailed study of its effectiveness. The authors describe how the Health Advisory Service works and reflect upon what they saw and heard in their investigation. They considered three questions - how well does the Health ...
This is a fully revised and updated version of the 1987 edition. It describes applications of DRGs at hospital level and examines their use in policy matters at all levels of health services. It is for everyone interested in and responsible for the way resources are used.
These guidelines have been compiled in response to an assessed need from hospitals for help with commissioning arts and artists. It is divided into seven chapters and includes guidance on the need for a committee; choosing a site; the commissioning process; fundraising. Its recommendations are based on 10 years of ...
The 'keepers' mentioned in the title of this book are workers in prisons, long-stay hospitals, homes for mentally retarded people and other total institutions. Their feelings about their work and about the institutions are presented here in twelve monologues selected from more than 60 interviews with workers in 27 different ...
This report is concerned with efforts to assure quality in medical care, focussing on quality assurance efforts affecting care provided by doctors and hospitals (and to a lesser extent nursing homes). The study examines quality assurance in Sweden, Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium and England as these represent a range ...
This project paper outlines some of the initiatives undertaken in the field of education and prevention of HIV infection in an area of low prevalence (Northern Ireland) and attempts to adduce some of the factors critical to achieving implementation of the programme, planning for which started at the end of ...
This is the third volume of King's College Studies in medical law and ethics. The following topics are covered: A.I.D.S.; contraception and family planning; human rights and the role of the judiciary in medical law; a national commission for medical ethics; defensive medicine and medical malpractice; the ethics of the ...
Managers may not be covered by the codes of practice of doctors and nurses but they are having to consider the ethical framework within which they work. This book examines ethical issues in a practical manner. It covers a wide field of concern to managers with responsibilities they have to ...
This paper is not intended as a critique of government policy, but rather as an exploration of the opportunities and constraints inherent in that policy and some of the processes which may be required to put the policy into effect. A fundamental tenet of this paper is that the needs ...
This report draws on the work of two meetings. Firstly, a conference of the UK Conference of Postgraduate Deans and the National Association of Clinical Tutors on the present state of postgraduate medical education and training, at which they expressed the urgent need for a more critical examination of current ...
The sixth King's Fund Forum was held in London from 26 to 28 June. Five questions were addressed; what is the relationship between dietary fats, blood cholesterol and the levels of coronary heart disease; what individual or community-wide dietary or other interventions can reduce blood cholesterol levels and the risk ...
The fourth King's Fund Forum was held in London from 30 November to 2 December 1987. A panel of twelve listened to evidence from experts in public sessions. After closed sessions the panel discussed the report with the audience; the agreed consensus statement was then presented at a press conference. ...
This booklet arose out of the work of Brunel ARMS Research Unit at Brunel University. The booklet has been written after talking to many carers, showing the variety in people's experience. The aim of the booklet is to show that a lot of people share the same experiences and difficulties ...
This paper takes a longer term look at the implications of measures to switch from institutional to community care, and the future role of carers. Tentative steps are being taken to forge a new relationship between formal and informal care systems; this report continues the debate into whether these are ...
The development of a network of services and support for people with A.I.D.S. is a challenge for voluntary agencies, for the NHS and for local authorities. There is a consensus that services should, as far as possible, be provided to enable people to be cared for in their own homes. ...
The philosophy of 'an ordinary life' has been the basis of a wide range of local initiatives, and increasingly influences large-scale changes in community care. This book includes contributions from seventeen people who as users, innovators and evaluators have been involved centrally in these developments. They review current practice in ...
In May 1985, five young men aged between 18 and 21 moved out of Brockhall Hospital (a long stay hospital for people with learning difficulties) to take up the tenancy of their own home in Blackburn. They moved with 9.5 whole-time equivalent health service staff to help them to learn ...
These papers were written in an attempt to help people appointed to the comparatively new post of organiser of voluntary help in the hospital service, and are directed particularly to those with little or no experience of the hospital world. It is also hoped that all staff, particularly nurses and ...
This book addresses the task of opening hospital services, and is intended as a practical guidebook for commissioning services and buildings. The context of commissioning is also considered: the effect of a new building on district services as a whole and the associated problems of closures and of the change ...
On 22 June 1988 the DHSS hosted a conference on women's health. This volume contains the papers given by the speakers. The purpose of the day was to provide a forum for dispelling the myths and correcting some of the misunderstandings surrounding women's health. Papers presented included breast cancer, cervical ...
Case management means a number of different ways of managing care, ranging from client advocacy on one hand, to managing services and resources on the other. These, and other issues, are explored in the context of three experimental projects supported by KEHFL. The book reviews a number of dimensions of ...
This book is based on the first research study to look at the impact on women of a positive cervical smear and subsequent investigation and treatment. It follows their experiences from the initial discovery through to outpatient treatment or inpatient surgery. The authors describe the thoughts and feelings women have ...
This publication reviews the progress in public health over the last decade. It seeks to interpret trends in health and to identify measures likely to be effective in promoting the public health. It outlines a national strategy for the next decade, identifying the public responsibilities of government and of the ...
The fifth King's Fund Forum was held in London on 27-29 June 1988. Five questions were addressed: 1) What are the responsibilities of service providers for patients and their carers? ; 2) For presumed stroke sufferers what has been shown to be of diagnostic value? ; 3a) What treatments have ...
The introduction of general management into the NHS has transformed the service. The author asks if the NHS can continue to evolve into a more dynamic, responsive and actively managed service, representing even better value for money or will the transition to general management be arrested?
The NIMROD service is recognised as being to the forefront of the move towards community care. This book uses a case-study approach to illustrate the experiences of seven people with learning difficulties who use this service. The case studies are analysed in terms of a number of interwoven concepts: presence ...
This book describes the first appointment of the Medical Officer of Health, and sets out the development of the office and its increasing responsibilities and achievements. An epilogue outlines the influences which led to the abolition of the post in 1974. This collection provides a timely opportunity to reconsider the ...
This book provides the results of a confidential enquiry into perioperative deaths conducted with the collaboration of both the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Association of Anaesthetists. The overall findings are reassuring, although several less than satisfactory practices are revealed. The conduct and outcome of ...
Between 1977 and 1981 the author visited over 100 places providing short-term care for children who are mentally handicapped and interviewed families whose children were receiving short-term care. This book describes the development of short-term residential care, who makes use of it, parents' reactions to and opinions of the services, ...
The role of library services in the NHS is highlighted in this paper, which offers proposals for developing these services in response to the needs of all users. The proposals arise from a series of workshops held between May and December 1983, which were organised by a joint working party ...
The tour of North America on which this report is based gave health professionals from the UK an opportunity to study the ideas and practices of countries with different health care systems and an extensive experience of health promotion initiatives. The implications for this country contained in this book are ...
The author was asked to deliver the first of a series of annual lectures endowed by Gloucester Health Authority. She chose as the topic of her speech, critical choices, centring on economic and ethical problems in the provision of health care.
Although the development of community care has been national policy in Britain for at least thirty years, it means something quite different in England, Scotland and Wales. This book offers a comparative study both of the central government departments responsible for making and implementing policy for community care, and of ...
Tom Evans was Director of the King's Fund College from 1981 until his death in 1985. This book is a tribute to him. The papers cover a variety of management issues: an exploration of what strategic management and strategic planning mean; management in the NHS; accountability in the public sector; ...
Arthur Andersen and Co. Management Consultants has been involved with a number of research projects designed to measure value for money in health and local authority services. This booklet describes the components which they believe make up a successful joint planning exercise. Its purpose is to present some lessons and ...
This is the first in the annual series of volumes on medical law and ethics based on lectures given at King's College London. The contributors, who came from a wide a range of disciplines and represent diverse interests, review important issues in the forefront of recent controversy, relating particularly to ...
The project was undertaken with the intention of clarifying and updating the original concept of the community hospital. In defining what community hospitals are, emphasis has been placed on their philosophy and on ensuring that their role is clearly understood.
This is the fourth paper published by the King's Fund and NAHA on the need to change the way in which pay is determined in the NHS. This paper outlines a proposed structure for determining pay, based on principles described in the earlier documents. The system has three elements: a ...
This report attempts to correlate therapeutic principles of the treatment of alcoholism with the planning and design of new facilities. Two existing treatment facilities are looked at in depth, Warlingham Park Hospital, Surrey and Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Scotland.
The aim of this project was to discover whether the needs of people whose relatives die in hospital are being met within that setting. Surveys were undertaken to gain the views of both sides, by seeking both the experiences of bereaved relatives, and by ascertaining the procedures and practices of ...
This publication contains proposals formulated by members of two workshops held in March 1982 about the management arrangements required for collecting valid clinical data and providing a district information service.
This research project is the result of collaboration by the following organisations:- The King's Fund; London Boroughs Training Committee; London Voluntary Services Council; National Institute of Social Work; Age Concern Greater London. It was financed by the King's Fund. The limits of altruism explores the social and psychological processes which ...
A number of hospitals now send information booklets or leaflets to their patients before they are admitted to the wards, and early in 1962 the King's Fund decided to conduct a survey to find out the extent to which such patients' booklets are in fact being issued by hospitals and ...
The discussion in this paper is based on the findings of a study supported by the King's Fund and conducted under the auspices of the Royal College of Radiologists Working Party on the Effective Use of Diagnostic Radiology in which four strategies were evaluated for implementing guidelines on the use ...
In 1957/58, the King's Fund conducted an enquiry into the problem of noise control in hospitals, and the results of this enquiry were published in a report in November 1958. In 1960 it was felt that some useful information might be obtained by inviting the fifteen hospitals of the initial ...
The idea of finding out which particular noises in hospitals were most worrying to patients was considered by the King's Fund in 1956 and it was decided that the hospital visitors should make special enquiries during the course of their visits to London hospitals. The resulting comments, which were made ...
This detailed survey of convalescence as it affects London patients arose as a development of the work of the King's Fund in the upgrading of convalescent homes which had been severely affected by the Second World War. It became clear during the survey that very little information was available about ...
This enquiry was initiated at a time when it was realised that a number of hospital authorities were beginning to think that the addition of recovery homes might assist in the solution of the problem of providing a better hospital service. A recovery home provides accommodation for patients in whom ...
This manual suggests subjects for enquiry and observation when hospital visits are being undertaken to gain first hand knowledge of the hospital and its work. The areas of the hospital covered are : inpatients; casualty patients; outpatients; medical records department; elderly people; operating theatres; x-ray and pathological departments; physiotherapy, occupational ...
This report makes a number of recommendations about the way in which hospital services are organised. These include the pattern of hospital services in areas or `regions'; and the establishment of a central body to be concerned with civilian medical and ancillary health services of the country.
Recommendations by the Medical Subcommittee to the Joint Committee about the functions and methods of staffing the teaching hospitals and special hospitals are printed in this pamphlet.
This conference was convened to consider and discuss the hospital services, their organisation and scope with special reference to methods of administration. From each country was presented a paper written by the representative of that country dealing in fairly general terms with the principal features of its acute hospital service.
The first paper from the conference discusses the health system of Sweden, considers how the rising costs of hospital care and shortage of medical personnel and especially doctors and nurses have focused the interest of the responsible medical and political bodies on rational hospital planning and organisation. The second paper ...
This report describes a visit made by staff of the Charing Cross Hospital to a number of recently built hospitals in Europe in May 1947. The visit was financed by a grant from the King's Fund. The purpose of the visit was to study methods of hospital design and planning. ...
This book describes a visit to a number of hospitals and other institutions in the Eastern States of America by a delegation from Charing Cross Hospital. The delegation held the view that the management of health is a problem which should know no national boundaries and which must be a ...
On March 24, 1923, the Voluntary Hospitals Commission wrote to the King's Fund, referring to a question and answer given in the House of Commons on Wednesday, March 21, on the subject of hospital accommodation for accident cases, and asking that the King's Fund, as the Voluntary Hospitals Committee for ...
This book studies voluntary service in the field of hospital, and makes some suggestions for future policy. It surveys the administration of the new hospital service, and studies voluntary service against this background. The phrase`voluntary service' covers the following : unpaid service by men and women who form part of ...
It was suggested that the future of efficient hospital library services could only be assured if fuller knowledge were available of existing services and their cost. This survey of a limited area was undertaken to prepare the way for a conference of all interested bodies in the country. The terms ...
This document reports the results of a Committee of which the terms of reference were : to ensure in Lewisham full co-operation between all services for the elderly, to ascertain what gaps existed and how they could be best filled. The Special Committee agreed to look particularly at the application ...
This report describes the King's Fund provision of homes for elderly people who do not require continued hospital treatment, but do need somewhere to go before returning to their own homes. Although the day-to-day running of these homes is undertaken by voluntary organisations, the hospital services undertake to accept responsibility ...
The aims of the survey were: i) to record and describe the experience of hospitals in relation to the recruitment, training ,remuneration and method of working of voluntary service organisers; ii) to study the achievements of full-time organisers in the use of volunteers within the hospitals and in their relationships ...
The purpose of this report is to attempt to define the work of the hospital chaplain which may be regarded as falling into two groups: ministry to patients; ministry to hospital staff.
This report is the outcome of an enquiry into the subject of relationships between GPs and hospitals. Its object is to draw attention to the problem of communication between hospitals and general practitioners and make any recommendations which seem indicated.
The theme for this conference was the pressure for more medical services, including curative care of all kinds and medical care and for more hospital services of all types, including acute, mixed, long-term and psychiatric services. Each paper provides an objective statement of facts as they exist in each country.
This second conference was presented with very definite and deliberately chosen terms of reference to form the basis of the papers and discussions. These were: 1) in the changing context of hospital administration what are the most important problems of today?; 2) how are these problems being dealt with and ...
The intention of this conference was to bring together persons from many countries who would be able to state, explain and comment upon the staffing problems of the health services of their national areas; who would be competent to discuss relevant matters of general interest; and whose individual and joint ...
This pamphlet is a prospectus for the staff college which existed in the 1960s to educate ward sisters so that they in turn could teach student and pupil nurses.
This hospital description seeks to establish a method of describing a new hospital and its planning which could be applied to any new hospital project. It is hoped that the description presents the project in a concise and readable form giving essential information about the hospital under the headings development, ...
After 19 years it is clear that the foundations of the NHS are sound, but there is still much readjustment to be achieved within the general plan. It has become increasingly clear that somehow much better cooperation must be achieved if the main divisions of the NHS, hospitals, public health ...
This document reports the work of the Hospital Personal Aid Service during 1960. The Service undertakes to visit, on behalf of hospitals, elderly people awaiting admission to hospital whose medical condition does not warrant immediate admission to an acute ward although no patient is visited and no action is taken ...
This report is the first result of a study concerned with the organisation and effectiveness of industrial therapy in psychiatric hospitals. It reflects the significant changes in the traditional views first, of the psychiatric patient and his relation to the community, and second, of the hospital itself as a social ...
Three surveys in this book follow up the first study which Professor Brocklehurst undertook for the King's Fund and illustrates ten years of progress by the N.H.S. in the provision of day care for elderly patients. The first provides general data on geriatric day hospitals in the UK: buildings, facilities ...
The aim of this report was to devise a method by which psychiatric hospitals could discover the views of their patients. Three methods were tried out in wards similar to each other in each of three hospitals. A simple, written questionnaire, answered anonymously, was found to be satisfactory except for ...
The purpose of this survey was to undertake an exploratory enquiry on the views of both staff and patients about psychiatric departments in general hospitals, mainly in London and southern England. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive attitude survey. Fourteen departments were included in the survey; at the ...
This book is about taking the drabness and regimentation out of long-term hospital care. It is not so much about attitudes as about how, in hundreds of small, practical ways, behaviour can be changed to make hospitals more human. The book is a joint effort between staff of the King's ...
In June 1987 the King's Fund convened the first meeting of a working party on the future shape of paediatric surgery in the four Thames regions, with special reference to Greater London. The working party was composed primarily of paediatric surgeons. This document is their report. The emphasis is on ...
The Committee was appointed to enquire into and report upon methods in use in London Voluntary Hospitals regarding the attendance of patients in outpatient and casualty departments, and the effect of those methods upon the suitability of the patients treated and on the length of time during which patients wait ...