Welfare Reform on the Web (August 1999): National Health Service - Community and Primary Care Services
CLINICAL EFFECTIVENESS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE
C. Adams
Community Practitioner, vol.72, 1999, p.125-127
To be clinically effective, practice must be based on the best available evidence of effectiveness and must meet clients' requirements. Any change to practice must be implemented within a framework of review and evaluation. Responding to the clinical effectiveness agenda involves questioning present practice, finding the best evidence, interpreting evidence and putting it into practice, evaluating clinical change and disseminating successful outcomes.
DANGERS OF MUDDLING MEDICS WITH MANAGERS
A. Wall
British Journal of Health Care Management, vol.5, 1999, p.148-149
Article examines the proposed arrangements for setting up Primary Care Trusts and outlines some of the likely initial difficulties. Concludes that GPs and their clinical colleagues are best employed when serving the needs of their patients directly, and that involving them in the proliferation of bureaucratic processes required to manage PCTs impedes their fundamental work.
EVIDENCE BASE FAVOURS MIX 'N' MATCH METHOD
R. Moloney, R. Chambers and N. Macleod
British Journal of Health Care Management, vol.5, 1999, p.150-152
Paper seeks to identify lessons from the previous primary care commissioning processes of fundholding, Locality Commissioning (LC), and Total Purchasing Pilots (TPPs) in order to inform the development of PCGs.
HEALTHY ACTION
B. McAliskey
Scope, May 1999, p.10-11
Two pilot Health Action Zones have been launched in Northern Ireland, one in North and West Belfast and one in Armagh and Dungannon. Essentially a Health Action Zone is an area in which there is an integrated inter-agency approach to addressing needs identified by the community served. The author is a representative of one of the community groups involved in the Armagh and Dungannon pilot and explains how the Zone was set up.
PRESCRIBED CARE
G. Ridgway
Community Practitioner, vol.72, 1999, p.119-120
The 'Crown Two' report provides one of the most exciting opportunities for nurses and health visitors for some time. Through its recommendations on dependent prescribing, it offers nurses more opportunities to provide patients with on-going care. Specialist asthma, diabetic, and palliative care nurses could be trained to prescribe certain medicines for patients whose conditions have been diagnosed or assessed by independent prescribers within an agreed treatment plan. The implications of these proposals in terms of education, regulation, administration and cost cannot be underestimated.
PRIMARY CARE GROUPS: A SOCIAL SERVICES PERSPECTIVE
D. Behan and L. Loft
Managing Community Care, vol.7, April 1999, p.21-24
Article was written jointly by the Director of Social Services and the Joint Commissioning. Manager for the London Borough of Greenwich and represents their personal views on the development of primary care groups, and their likely impact on social services.
PRIMARY HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL CARE: WORKING ACROSS PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES. PART 2, MODELS OF INTER-PROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION.
B. Hudson
Managing Community Care, vol.7, April 1999, p.15-20
Four models of inter-professional collaboration are explored. Communication involves facilitation of the exchange of information; co-ordination involves individuals developing formal ways of working across agency boundaries; co-location has members of different professionals physically located alongside each other; commissioning involves professionals developing a shared approach to the activity.
STATES OF FLUX
M. Devlin and J. Smith
Health Service Journal, vol.109, May 6th 1999, p.24-25
Primary Care Trusts are similar to US health maintenance organisations in that they act as both commissioners and providers of services. There are also already innovative primary care organisations in the NHS and the private sector that can be classed as embryonic PCTs. Experience of these organisations, assessed in relation to HMOs, can inform the development of PCTs.
WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP
K. Daniel
Community Practitioner, vol.72, 1999, p.117-118
Reports on the impact of the Ore Valley community project on the Farley Bank Estate. This multi-agency project has created a first rate primary care infrastructure for the estate, including the services of a community health worker, health visitors, district nurses, various courses at Sussex University co-ordinated by an outreach worker, careers and housing advice, a toy library, baby and toddler advice sessions, and a residents association.
PARTNERSHIP IN ACTION; NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR JOINT WORKING BETWEEN HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES: A DISCUSSION DOCUMENT
Department of Health
London, 1998.
The government proposes to remove barriers to joint working by introducing powers to enable pooling of health and social services budgets, appointment of lead commissioners to take responsibility for purchasing both health and social care, and integration of provision. Incentives to encourage, and measure to monitor and review joint working will be introduced.