rcpch april health policy bulletin
DESCRIPTION
April edition of regular policy bulletinTRANSCRIPT
Health policy e-bulletin April 2012
Note- this bulletin is largely focused on policy in England - we would be pleased to include more detail from the devolved nations - please let us know what would be helpful Health and Social Care Bill update The Bill has finally made its way through report stage of the House of Lords, and has now received Royal Assent to become the Health and Social Care Act (2012). The College had a number of its suggested amendments on the involvement of children and young people tabled and discussed by Baroness Massey, at Report Stage. The full transcript of the exchange is available to read on the parliament website, under Amendment 227. Following a survey of members, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) had voted to call on the government to withdraw the Health and Social Care Bill, and was urging Ministers to bring together all healthcare professionals to work on practical steps for delivering areas of reform where there is clear consensus. The decision was taken by the RCPCH’s Council following a survey of UK members, which saw 79% of respondents vote for the College to call for the ‘outright withdrawal’ of the Bill rather than continue to push for amendments. President of the RCPCH, Professor Terence Stephenson, said: “It is clear that a substantial majority of our voting members believe that the Health and Social Care Bill carries risk for children and young people. Despite revisions and assurances from Government, there remains widespread and deep concern amongst not only our members, but also the wider health profession and public, about the Bill’s impact on patient care.” Children and Young People’s Forum seeks your views The recently formed Children and Young People’s Health Outcomes Forum, which includes Professor Terence Stephenson and other RCPCH members amongst its number, is seeking your views on the health outcomes that you think are most important for children and young people, and how these might be achieved. Please respond here by the closing date of 30 April 2012. Bringing networks to life The RCPCH has written a guide to implementing networks for children’s services, called Bringing networks to life. It makes the case for development and maintenance of formal and informal paediatric networks across a range of specialties, with the rationale, tips and checklists. Alongside practical guidance and advice on initiating networked care, the document is accompanied by examples of current best practice models. Safeguarding in 2012: views from the frontline In February 2012, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) conducted an event and survey of designated and named doctors. This was to establish how those responsible for safeguarding feel national changes will affect them in their role of protecting
the country’s most vulnerable children. The above quotes give a flavour of some of our respondents’ thoughts. 'Safeguarding in 2012: views from the frontline' makes recommendations intended for all practitioners, agencies and policymakers that will inform national developments and the direction of child protection policy and training at the College. NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare for Children and Young People The Atlas, produced by the Department of Health, maps the care of children across all Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in England based on 27 health indicators including immunisation, treatment of diabetes and emergency admission rates for epilepsy and asthma. It shows that, for some conditions, there is at least a seven-fold variation in the medical care children receive - and local variation due to socio-economic factors is not the sole reason for inequity in childcare. The Atlas is an essential tool for reducing unwarranted variation to increase value and improve quality, and is accompanied by ChiMat’s publication of 2012 Child Health Profiles for each local authority. Confidential case review theme announced and expert group to be recruited The theme of the confidential case review of mortality and morbidity to be undertaken as part of the Clinical outcome review programme: child health reviews-UK (CHR-UK) has been announced. The review will examine aspects of care received by 1-18 year olds with epilepsy at all stages of the care pathway, including emergency and primary care. CHR-UK is the child health component of the HQIP-administered Clinical outcome review programme, which aims to inform clinical practice and improve services in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. CHR-UK is comprised of two projects, a retrospective epidemiological analysis of mortality using existing datasets and a themed confidential case review looking at mortality and morbidity. An expert group is being recruited to help develop all aspects of the confidential case review, including the design of case assessment criteria, interpretation of data, the distillation of evidence into recommendations for the improvement of clinical practice, and the development of implementation and quality improvement tools. Details of the expert group constituency, more about what the role involves and information about how to apply can be found on the CHR-UK website: www.rcpch.ac.uk/chr-uk The deadline for applications is midday on Wednesday 4 April. Specialist Commissioning and Networks With the loss of SHAs in England from April 2013 a substantial amount of work is in hand to define specialist services to be commissioned nationally by the NHS Commissioning Board. A new website provides some details and SHAs are leading the process supported by a new NHS Transition Team. Our specialty groups and the Special Interest Groups have been involved to contribute expertise to the programme where appropriate. More details through the Northwest Specialist commissioning group's helpful webpage or contact [email protected]
Implementation of new clinical network arrangements The NHS Commissioning Board is honing its approach to Strategic Clinical Networks and operational plans are being developed to define the operation and processes for commissioning large scale clinical networks. RCPCH is working closely with the clinicians and developers of these new arrangements to ensure that the importance of children's clinical health networks are understood and appropriately recognised in the new structures. Please keep in touch with the Health Policy team if you need more information or wish to be part of the debate: [email protected] or www.rcpch.ac.uk/networks Workforce Census 2011: A further reminder Further to last month’s bulletin, the College’s workforce team have now received over 60% of the online census returns, but it is very important to achieve a 100% response rate and the College will continue data collection until we are as close as possible to this target. At the RCPCH Council meeting on 7th March, the importance of this data was stressed by the President and members were asked to encourage completion of the census. The invite to complete the census was first sent in October 2011 and the online system has now been open for 5 months. If you are a Clinical Director/Lead who has received an invite to complete the census but have not done so yet, we would urge you to complete your census and return as soon as possible. If you need assistance in completing the return, please contact Rachel Winch or Martin McColgan on [email protected] or 020 7092 6163/6162. The Future Consultant Workforce A report by the CfWI (Centre for Workforce Intelligence) has stated that the total consultant workforce is set to increase by 60% by 2020 if doctors continue to be trained and recruited at current rates. The report describes a number of future scenarios and CfWI are encouraging contributions to this debate. You can read the report and contribute to the forum at http://www.cfwi.org.uk/resources/leaders-report-shape-of-the-medical-workforce (deadline 30 April 2012). If you would like to add your views to the College’s response, email [email protected] The Benefits of Consultant Delivered Care The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges published The Benefits of Consultant Delivered Care in January 2012. The report identified the following key benefits of consultant delivered care:
x rapid and appropriate decision making x improved outcomes x more efficient use of resources x GP's access to the opinion of a fully trained doctor x patient expectation of access to appropriate and skilled clinicians and information x benefits for the training of junior doctors
Visit our Consultant Delivered Care project page to read more about the College’s work in this area.
Study of acute paediatric and local authority child protection services – information needed! SCIE are inviting all trusts to complete an online survey to build up an understanding of current arrangements for providing social work services to acute hospitals. It focuses on arrangements for liaison, information sharing and joint working in cases of suspected child maltreatment and what helps to support effective joint work. The study looks particularly at arrangements in the Emergency Department but also includes some questions about the trust more widely. The link to the survey is http://www.clicktools.com/dashboard/survey/response.jsp and if you have any questions please contact [email protected] RCPCH Health Policy team Sue Eardley, Head of Health Policy Peder Clark, Health Policy Lead Nick Libell, Child Protection Lead Laura Green, Health Policy Administrator If you no longer wish to receive this bulletin, please email [email protected] Similarly, if one of your colleagues would like to receive this bulletin, please contact the team at the above address.