Many of the potential pitfalls of increasing purchaser plurality in the NHS are relevant in planning and developing general practitioner led locality commissioning. However, this involvement in commissioning or purchasing maternity care may actually provide the 'bite' necessary to move reluctant provider trusts more quickly towards services which meet the ...
The 1997 white paper 'The New NHS: modern, dependable' promised to put quality at the heart of the health service, announcing the formation of a National Institute of Clinical Excellence, a Commission for Health Improvement, evidence based National Service Frameworks, a new system of clinical governance in NHS trusts and ...
Considerable management challenges must be faced in order to ensure the successful operation of primary care groups (PCGs). The insights to be gained from those involved in total purchasing pilots (TPPs) are likely to prove valuable in informing the development of PCGs, and workshops were held to capture some of ...
This report is the third in a series of papers. It focuses on the evaluation of intermediate care services. Previous work has dealt with a conceptual framework to clarify understanding of intermediate care, and with issues of implementation. In the last year, interest in intermediate care has made an exponential ...
In the spring of 1996, the Implementation Group of North Thames Research and Development allocated £50000 to each of thirteen health authorities for evidence into practice implementation projects. In autumn 1996, the King's Fund Management College was commissioned to evaluate the 17 approved projects. This is the second of three ...
This report summarises the main results of a survey of approaches to commissioning. All health authorities were surveyed and a 100 per cent response was achieved. The survey sought to map different approaches to commissioning and to assess the impact of these approaches from the perspective of health authorities. The ...
This report presents the findings of a project that aimed to understand the present state of knowledge of the clinical effectiveness of rehabilitation using the evidence of systematic reviews. Fifty-six systematic reviews covering a variety of disabilities, health problems, diseases and client groups were identified through a literature search. Data ...
The authors evaluated the implementation of Health at Work, a national programme of work which has begun to open up the workplace health agenda as an organisational and leadership development agenda. Through their research and evaluation strategy they established that: workplace health interventions can make a positive difference to workforce ...
This report describes the planning, implementation and outcomes of a process for involving local citizens and users and their organisations in informing the NHS Confederation's conference 'All Our Tomorrows' in July 1998, to celebrate 50 years of the NHS. The King's Fund was invited to contribute to the design and ...
While most GP practices participating in total purchasing have some experience of contracting with health care providers, the extension of their responsibilities has, in many cases, taken them into entirely new areas and posed a set of challenges for primary care-based purchasing. This paper concentrates on a central element of ...
In a previous working paper the results of a survey of the contracting arrangements of the 53 first wave total purchasing pilot (TPP) projects during 1996-97 were given. This working paper reports the results of a follow-up survey carried out for the 1997-98 contracting round. The survey was designed to ...
This briefing paper summarises the key findings of two literature reviews jointly commissioned by the Audit Commission and the King's Fund. The reviews provide evidence of shortcomings in the current health and social care system and practices and processes that are known to be effective in achieving good outcomes for ...
This book is published to mark the 50th anniversary of the NHS. It traces chronologically the major achievements and events in medicine, nursing, hospital development, primary health care and health management. The introductory chapter describes the health services in 1948. The next five chapters each cover a decade, and begin ...
This paper offers a way of thinking about the purpose of partnership; partnership behaviours which fit different purposes; and partnership behaviours which can lead to sustainable change and are not dependent on injections of external resources. The authors have created a typology which focuses on the purpose of partnership, in ...
The purpose of this paper is to report initial results from studies of the management costs, associated with TPP and to explore the relevance of current experience for the costs of establishing the new Primary Care Groups (PCGs) outlined in the Labour government's white paper on the NHS. The methodology ...
This paper looks at the government's plan for action zones in education, employment and health which aim to break out of the cycle of deprivation. It examines how the many individuals, groups and organisations who will be involved in the action zones will work together. The authors feel that if ...
This review examines the meaning of rehabilitation, the provision of it and responsibilities for rehabilitation services within health and social care, and trends in the availability of provision. It concludes that there is increasing awareness of the importance of rehabilitation but, in practice, opportunities for it are not being fully ...
This Review is based on the financial year 1996 to 1997. The first part examines the main events of the year in five key policy areas: creating the new NHS ; community care ; public health strategy; serving the consumer; and clinical knowledge. The second part of the work contains ...
The evaluation of Total Purchasing Project (TPP) initiatives in the field of continuing and community care was designed to provide answers to three key questions: to what extent were the TPPs aware of the policy consensus that has emerged in relation to the planning and delivery of continuing and community ...