PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE NUFFIELD TRUST Quality is an issue of central importance in the NHS and yet, despite a considerable number of initiatives, programmes and organisation that have focussed on improving quality in the NHS over recent years, there's no comprehensive, reliable balance and rigorous account of the strengths and weaknesses in healthcare delivery. This book provides an authoritative and accessible account of the state of quality in the NHS. Unless information on quality is properly gathered, organised, analysed and used, the health service will continue to lack a foundation on which sustained and systemic improvement can be based. The Quest for Quality in the NHS: a chartbook on quality of care in the UK is a comprehensive, rigorous and robust account of healthcare quality and will inform the public, managers, researchers and policymakers about gaps between what is possible, and what is delivered by the healthcare system.

Quest for Quality in the Nhs

The Human Rights Act is now in force. Any NHS body that acts in a way that is incompatible with the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights may be acting unlawfully. This workbook is a personal perspective based on the authors' experience of health service management and the law. It explains the impact of the Act, raises issues surrounding its implementation, and asks questions about its implications for the future. It has practical exercises to help readers respond to the challenges of the Act, individually or in team sessions. The Human Rights Act and The European Convention on Human Rights are reproduced in full. There is a great deal in the Act that will have subtle implications for how and when health care is provided and for many of the assumptions that are taken for granted.

This is the quick, go-to-reference book for public health trainees and practitioners. It distils information from the core disciplines of public health into one concise volume. It is also packed with practical tips on professional competencies and skills development, as well as new emerging topics.

For more than 40 years, SAGE has been one of the leading international publishers of works on quantitative research methods in the social sciences. This new collection provides readers with a representative sample of the best articles in quantitative methods that have appeared in SAGE journals as chosen by W. Paul Vogt, editor of other successful major reference collections such as Selecting Research Methods (2008) and Data Collection (2010). The volumes and articles are organized by theme rather than by discipline. Although there are some discipline-specific methods, most often quantitative research methods cut across disciplinary boundaries. Volume One: Fundamental Issues in Quantitative Research Volume Two: Measurement for Causal and Statistical Inference Volume Three: Alternatives to Hypothesis Testing Volume Four: Complex Designs for a Complex World

The last decade has witnessed a transformation in the organization and management of primary care. In Towards Managed Primary Care, the authors examine the background and development of Primary Care Groups and Primary Care Trusts (PCG/Ts) in the English NHS. The book focuses on the practical experience of developing and managing PCG/Ts and on the lessons that can be drawn from this for future policy relating to the management and evaluation of such organizations in the UK and elsewhere. The work: ¢ Provides an overview of the background to the development of PCG/Ts in England, set within the context of international developments of similar primary care organizations; ¢ Examines the organization and management of PCG/Ts; ¢ Analyses the impact of PCG/Ts on the provision of health services and on the wider health system; ¢ Explores the challenges inherent in carrying out research into primary care organizations; ¢ Focuses on the future development and evaluation of primary care organizations. With chapter conclusions setting out evidence-based lessons for developing and researching primary care organizations, this book will be an invaluable guide for all those interested or involved in health policy, health services research and primary care organization and management.

In this fascinating book David Ingram traces the history of information technology and health informatics from its pioneers in the middle of the twentieth century to its latest developments. The book is distinctive in its broad scope and coverage and as the eyewitness account of an author who became the first UK professor appointed with the mission to bridge information technology with everyday medicine, health, and care. In this role, he has been a co-founder and leader of two rapidly growing initiatives, openEHR and OpenEyes, which stem from international collaborations of universities, health services and industries. These open source and open platform technologies have struck a widely resonant chord worldwide through their focus on community interest endeavours and open access to their methods and outputs. Set against the history of extremely costly, burdensome, and serially unsuccessful top-down attempts of governments to tackle the domain, the book argues for a greater focus on shared endeavours of this kind, contributing towards a standardized care information utility that incorporates methods and resources evolved, shared, and sustained in the public domain. As information technologies are now at the very core of health care, shaping the relationship between medical services and communities, professions, organisations and industries this book is important reading for politicians, health care academics, administrators and providers, and to anybody interested in the future of health services in the digital age.

Analyzing the level of claims for clinical negligence in the light of the most recent trends and discovering whether there is indeed a litigation crisis in healthcare, this book is a topical and compelling exploration of healthcare and doctor-patient relationships. The author: identifies and analyzes the growing pressures on doctors in modern society, placing their role in context explores some of the myths surrounding media claims about malpractice considers the practice of ‘defensive medicine’ and the difference between defensive practices and sensible risk management examines external pressures, such as political interference with clinical practice in the form of target-setting and what might be described as a culture of creeping privatization of healthcare. Covering the topics of medicine and the media and the causes of occupational stress among doctors, this volume is a must read for all students of medical law and medical ethics.

This important book examines issues affecting the sustainability and spread of new working practices. The question of why good ideas do not spread, ‘the best practices puzzle’, has been widely recognized. But the ‘improvement evaporation effect’, where successful changes are discontinued, has attracted less attention. Keeping things the way they are has been seen as an organizational problem to be resolved, not a condition to be achieved. This is one of the first major studies of the sustainability of change focusing on the example of the NHS, by a unique team of health service and academic researchers. The findings may apply to a variety of other settings. The agenda set out in 2000 in The NHS Plan is perhaps the largest organization development programme ever undertaken, in any sector, anywhere. The NHS thus offers a valuable ‘living laboratory’ for the study of change. This text shows that sustainability and spread are influenced by a range of issues - contextual, managerial, political, individual, and temporal. Developing a processual perspective, this fresh analysis considers policy implications, and strategies for managing sustainability and spread. This book will be essential reading for students, managers, and researchers concerned with the effective implementation of organizational change.