Patient focus updates - 4 April 2013

New policy, guidance and initiatives from across the UK that focus on the patient perspective and experience. For more information about this theme see Quality and Safety eBulletin: Patient focus.

Some of the resources linked to are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

BBC Health: Male bowel cancer on the increase, says Cancer Research UK. Bowel cancer rates among men have increased by more than a quarter in the last 35 years. The Cancer Research UK study said this contrasted with a rise of just 6% in the rate for women over the same time.

BMC health Services Research: Development of a patient-centred care pathway across healthcare providers: a qualitative study. “Disease-based care pathways for older patients were found to be neither feasible nor sustainable in primary care. A common patient-centred care pathway that could meet the needs of multi-morbid patients was recommended.”

Care Quality Commission (CQC): Find your GP services online. From 1 April 2013, all GP services - such as doctors' practices and walk-in centres - came into the CQC's system of regulation. The CQC has added profiles for more than 8,500 of these to their online directory of care services.

Daily Mail: Hospital does away with traditional backless gowns for new Velcro suits. A new Velcro suit for hospital patients could spell the beginning of the end of the traditional backless gown, according to its designers. Health chiefs at Birmingham children's hospital yesterday unveiled the suits being used on some of its wards. The Dignity Giving Suits for patients are the first type to be used in British hospitals.

DH: NHS Constitution for England. The constitution sets out rights for patients, public and staff. It outlines NHS commitments to patients and staff, and the responsibilities that the public, patients and staff owe to one another to ensure that the NHS operates fairly and effectively. All NHS bodies and private and third sector providers supplying NHS services are required by law to take account of this constitution in their decisions and actions.
DH: Updated NHS Constitution published.

DH: Putting Patients First: government publishes response to Francis Report. The quality of patient care will be put at the heart of the NHS in an overhaul of the health and care system in response to the Francis Inquiry. Hospitals and care homes will be encouraged to strive to be the best, the basic values of dignity and respect will be central to care training and, if things go wrong, patients and their families will be told about it.

DH: Liverpool Care Pathway review to hold sessions with families and carers. The independent review of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) for dying patients is holding sessions for families and carers. The sessions, in which the review panel will listen to to families’ and carers’ experiences of the LCP, are taking place in London on 7 May, Preston on 16 May and Bristol on 20 May.

DH: Local Involvement Networks Annual Reports 2011 to 2012. Local Involvement Networks (LINks) are independent networks made up of individuals and community groups, such as charities, faith groups, residents’ associations and youth councils, who work together to improve local health and social care services. These annual reports come from LINks fourth year of operation and, where possible, comparisons have been made with the previous years data.

Guardian: Creating a culture of compassion in the NHS after the Francis report. “The Francis Report offers an opportunity for the board of Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust to re-engage with staff at all levels not just top-down but critically, bottom-up. It is a chance to genuinely involve people, from the porter to the chief executive, in achieving the cultural change that is required to ensure that patients get the best possible care and readmissions are kept to a minimum.”

Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI): Through the Eyes of Patients and Family Members. “Respectful, effective management of a serious clinical adverse (or "sentinel") event is one of the most important responsibilities of any health care organization. Over the years, IHI and its partners have learned that looking at these crises from the perspectives of the patients and family members they affect is absolutely necessary.”
A Healthy Blog: Patient Safety Week Guest Blog: Serious Clinical Adverse Events: Learning Through the Eyes of Patients and Family Members.
See also: Respectful Management of Serious Clinical Adverse Events.

INVOLVE: Evidence Bibliography 4. This publication, Evidence Bibliography 4, contains all of the references in the online  library up until September 2012, including the references from Bibliography 3 (published October 2010). It includes references on the nature and impact of public involvement in research.

INVOLVE: Patient, carer and public involvement seminar series. Elaine McNichol from the University of Leeds has funding from the Higher Education Academy to coordinate a series of five seminars about patient, carer and public involvement in health, education and research. Two have taken place and the next three are coming up in April, May and June 2013.

INVOLVE: Involving women with gestational diabetes. This qualitative study, with service users as co-researchers, to ask a group of women how they wished to self-manage their future risk of GDM and type 2 diabetes and how they wanted to be supported if at all. It also asked whether an intervention post pregnancy to advise and educate on risks of diabetes, weight and exercise was a good idea.

Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA): The value of library and information services in patient care: results of a multisite study. The authors of this study, surveyed physicians, residents and nurses at 56 library sites serving 118 hospitals about the value of library and information services. They asked respondents to base their answers on a recent incident in which they had sought information for patient care. Three-quarters of respondents stated that the information they found through the service changed the way they handled aspects of patient care.

Monitor: A fair playing field for the benefit of NHS patients: Monitor's independent review for the Secretary of State for Health. This review is intended to inform the statutory report on this issue that the Secretary of State must lay before parliament in March 2013. The report concentrates on distortions regarding the wide variety of health care providers offering or seeking to offer services to NHS patients. It argues that if the playing field were level, there would be nothing to prevent providers with the best services from accessing patients, regardless of the type of provider. It also examines the impact this has, or could potentially have, on patients.

Monitor: Consultations on safeguarding choice and preventing anti-competitive behaviour. Monitor is seeking views on four new draft guidance documents which relate to their new statutory duty to safeguard choice and prevent anti-competitive behaviour. Views on these draft guidance documents will be accepted until 5pm on 25th June 2013.

NHS Commissioning Board: Clinical reference groups: patient and carer member recruitment launched. The NHS Commissioning Board (NHS CB) – NHS England - has opened the application process for patient and carer members of its 74 clinical reference groups (CRGs) for 2013/14. CRGs are responsible for providing the NHS CB with clinical advice regarding specialised services, and for promoting equity of access to high quality services for all patients, regardless of where they live.
Clinical Reference Groups for Specialised Services. Information pack for patients and carers (PDF 406KB).
Clinical Reference Groups for Specialised Services A Guide for Stakeholders (PDF 934KB).

NHS London Sexual Health Programme: SHAPE: SHAPE: Sexual Health and Public Engagement, a training tool for commissioners. SHAPE is a web-based training resource, consisting of regularly updated instalments on common issues in PPE for SRHH commissioners. Its focus is on how commissioners can proactively embed PPE in all stages of commissioning: strategic planning, procurement and management. Rather than being prescriptive, SHAPE aims to provide departure points or suggested models in response to these common issues.

Patients Association: Primary care: Access denied? (PDF 995KB). As many as three quarters of people (79 per cent) wouldn’t feel safe relying on NHS out-of-hours services in a medical emergency. This report uncovers new evidence that: almost two thirds of people (61 per cent) have to wait longer than 48 hours to book an appointment with their GP and more than half (57per cent) said the process was either ‘very difficult’ or ‘could have been easier’.
Press release: Primary Care: Access denied.
BBC Health: People have little faith in NHS out-of-hours service.

Royal College of Psychiatrists (RC Psych): Whole-person care: from rhetoric to reality. This report highlights the significant inequalities that currently exist between physical and mental health care, including preventable premature deaths, lower treatment rates for mental health conditions and an underfunding of mental healthcare relative to the scale and impact of mental health problems. It also outlines the strong relationship between mental health and physical health. It makes a series of key recommendations for government, policy-makers and health professionals, as well as the new NHS structures coming into force on the 1st April, including improved joint working across teams and organisations, and an increase in funding to address existing problems.
Report: Whole-person Care: from rhetoric to reality (Achieving parity between mental and physical health).