Toolkit takes to the road
In June 2007, the Department of Health (DH) published Tuberculosis prevention and treatment: a toolkit for planning, commissioning and delivering high-quality services in England.
The toolkit was developed by three independent expert working groups, which included TB nurses, and which developed advice and best practice on commissioning, service delivery and laboratory standards and surveillance.
What’s in it?
The commissioning section of the toolkit has been designed as a practical guide for PCTs – even a commissioner with scant knowledge of TB can use it to ensure that an appropriate range of services is being commissioned for their population, and that those services are provided within a rational framework.
Key issues such as applying the choice policy to TB and the impact of Payment by Results are also discussed. A list of key components of an effective TB service is followed by an explanation of the tiered model of commissioning and a series of templates to stimulate a review of what services are currently in place, and advice on how to do this. Examples are also given of hypothetical PCT scenarios.
The toolkit discusses a number of best-practice issues, such as the use of specialist centres providing a multi-disciplinary team approach as well as a discussion about the type of service most appropriate to areas of high and low incidence. Additional information includes a sample service level agreement, some typical patient pathways and an evaluation of interferon-gamma tests for the diagnosis of TB.
Workshops available
The DH is supporting a series of interactive workshops in each strategic health authority (SHA) in England, where commissioners, TB service providers and other stakeholders (e.g. local CCDC, public health) use the toolkit to review and reconsider their local response, not just to current TB issues but to potential future ones – a key element of the toolkit’s philosophy is that with rapidly changing population patterns, primary care trusts (PCTs) should ensure that they and their service providers have a strategy for coping with a surge in TB cases.