The War on Waiting for Hospital Treatment (Harrison and Appleby 2005) examined the government's record on reducing the number of people on waiting lists for elective care in England, and the time they had to wait. This briefing provides an update on that analysis. The waiting times targets currently in ...
Practice-based commissioning is a policy that aims to give more influence and control to GP practices in England over how money is spent on health care services. At the moment, the bulk of NHS money is allocated to primary care trusts (PCTs) who then commission and reimburse hospitals (and other ...
While the 'postcode lottery' of accessing drugs such as Herceptin on the NHS attract media headlines, there has been growing awareness of more fundamental variations in spending by primary care trusts (PCTs), the organisations responsible for purchasing the bulk of NHS care for people living in their catchment areas. This ...
This guide sets out to show how teams of NHS staff can plan and deliver their own medium-sized design projects in hospitals by making better use of existing resources. It is aimed at a wide audience, including the frontline employees, such as nursing and estates or facilities staff, who may ...
Improving health and social care is a political priority in the United Kingdom. Boosting the number of health care workers and making better use of their skills are central objectives of the Government's plans for reform. However, recruitment and retention are major problems for the NHS, particularly in inner cities ...
Derek Wanless' 2002 report on the future course of NHS spending was immensely important. Not only did it directly inform the Chancellor's spending plans for the NHS for the next five years - which gave the NHS an unprecedented real increase of over 40 per cent by 2007/8 - but ...
Since its beginnings, the NHS has had a close relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. While not an official public-private partnership (PPP) there has been, in effect, an implicit PPP for pharmaceutical research and provision. This partnership has been an undoubted economic success. However, the interests of users of the health ...
This new policy paper, which follows up an interim report published in 2002, aims to take a fresh look at the issues facing planners, policy makers and managers responsible for maintaining and developing the health care workforces in London, and to tease out some of the opportunities, as well as ...
This research summary examines a key aspect of NHS staffing: that of the loss of experience from health services as older staff, who are valuable and much needed, leave early in ever-increasing numbers. With a workforce where about 150,000 of the one million employed are aged 50 or over, and ...
This book is based on a series of King's Fund seminars which looked at what values mean for a modern, publicly owned health organisation. It highlights specific value conflicts and argues that for values to 'live' as an organisational reality, trade-offs must be visible, managed and explicit. Topics include: the ...
The NHS is the largest single organisation in the UK. Its potential impact on the environment, the health of the public and the fabric of their lives is huge, whether as employer, purchaser of goods and services, cause of travel, producer of waste, consumer of energy or commissioner of building ...
This summary draws on 'Working for Health : the NHS as an employer and its role in regeneration' published in February 2001, and a public seminar, 'New routes to health through employment' held on 7 February 2001, organised by the King's Fund and the London Regeneration Network.
The Labour Government's commitment to making more use of the private sector in health care is proving controversial. Opponents are concerned that it signals the end of the NHS as we know it. Yet public-private relationships are as old as the NHS. This book analyses existing relationships and the regulatory ...
In recent years, new health care delivery initiatives have emerged that promise to overcome some of the long-standing difficulties that hinder the various parts of the NHS from working efficiently and effectively together. These include national service frameworks, care pathways and NHS Direct. However, their full implications have yet to ...
This book presents the reality of racism in today's NHS. It attempts to tackle the discrimination and injustice some people from minority ethnic groups working in the health service and particularly medicine currently endure. Using a range of anecdotal accounts, historical perspectives and research by contributors from culturally diverse backgrounds, ...
This publication is a comprehensive review of health care policy issues. It contains a calendar of events from August 2000 to January 2001 and articles on areas of health policy such as: setting targets for health spending; allocating resources to reduce health inequalities; health policy developments in Europe; the politics ...