NHS England is inviting specialist hospitals to take part in a new, innovative commissioning approach, aimed at increasing access to services or treatments which are not currently routinely funded by the NHS. The first treatment to benefit, as part of the Commissioning through Evaluation programme, will be Selective Internal Radiotherapy (SIRT), a form of radiotherapy […]

Measuring Shared Decision Making (see link below) provides a summary of the types of measures that are available, a recommendation of which measures might be appropriate for the national programme and a rationale for the suggested approach. It may be useful background for commissioners considering how to measure SDM activity locally.  The report refers to […]

NHS England today welcomes the publication of 6-monthly data on patient safety incidents. Acute hospitals, mental health services, community trusts, ambulance services and primary care organisations all report incidents in which any patient could have been harmed or has suffered any level of harm, to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS). Incident reporting enables […]

Since the publication of this blog John Holden has left NHS England. Your feedback Thank you for your continued feedback.  There are two issues I wanted to highlight this week: Membership of Clinical Reference Groups (CRGs) The work of the CRGs and how this links to the work of the review Membership of CRGs:  Concerns […]

The remaining three of ten specialist surgical societies will publish outcomes data for individual hospital consultants, including mortality rates, from today. This completes the staged ‘pilot’ publication of this data that started in June this year. It is part of NHS England’s drive for greater transparency and a commitment to providing patients with more information […]

Since the publication of this blog Dr Mike Durkin has left NHS England. Today, Professor Don Berwick publishes his report on the safety of patients in England. I had the pleasure of supporting his advisory group as they carried out their huge amount of academic research and engagement with professionals and the public, so I […]

Since the publication of this blog John Holden has left NHS England. Your feedback Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback, in response to the CHD blog or elsewhere.   We cannot respond to every single comment we receive but we will take them all into account.  Some early themes to emerge are i) the […]

NHS England will today (Friday 28 June) begin the staged publication of mortality rates for individual hospital consultants in ten specialties, a major breakthrough in NHS transparency. It is leading a drive to give patients more information about their treatment, helping the NHS drive up and maintain the quality of care. The data – covering […]

£150,000 dementia prize fund launched Frontline health and care professionals are being invited to bid for a share of the £150,000 NHS Innovation Challenge Prize for Dementia. The competition is open to anyone working in dementia care including GPs, specialist nurses, social workers, support workers, charities and patient support groups. £260 million technology fund to […]

Epilepsy Action, in association with NHS England, has developed new guidelines (new guidelines for children’s epilepsy surgery) to help more children with epilepsy benefit from surgical procedures. The guidance has been developed for paediatricians and will help to increase the number of children referred for epilepsy surgery. The guidelines have been produced following the introduction […]