Coming up to Easter Newsletter
Posted: 18 March, 2009 by Colin Adamson
No sooner had we posted our article about users reclaiming their own data for their own uses than Gordon Brown got in on the act with their publication on working together – see the quote below:-
Enabling patients to have their say
Patients can already view comparative information about a range of healthcare services online at the NHS Choices website. Patients can make their own comments, observations and suggestions about hospital services and allow these to be visible to other patients. Often the best way for people to understand whether a service is right for them is to see what other similar users thought of that service. This is the experience of millions of customers who use Amazon.com or iTunes, and while these are for simpler, less important services like books or music, the same principle of valuing the opinions and views of others applies in the decisions we make around our health and care as well. Around 10,000 such comments have been posted since the launch of NHS Choices in 2007. During 2009 the ability to make this kind of comment will be extended from hospitals to include GP practices, and over time we expect patients to be able to make comments on and review all NHS services through the NHS Choices website. At the same time, payment to hospitals for services is being linked to patient-reported experiences and outcomes as one way of driving improved quality and patient-focus across the NHS. And we will see the quantity of this payment linked to outcomes increasing year-on-year as quality measurement improves and commissioners focus on ever higher outcomes.
PG – new project, new book
A recent Val Moore blog post logged two recent developments in the introduction of Policy Governance© into the UK with a second NHS Trust taking up the approach. For those who want to understand and learn more about this particular approach to PG, Caroline Oliver founder member of the International Policy Governance Association as well as current Chair of the UKPGA has just written Getting Started with Policy Governance – bringing purpose, integrity and efficiency to your Board ( pub Jossey-Bass January 2009). This is essential reading for any Board member who wants to “up their game” and is the ideal follow up to John Carver’s Boards that Make a Difference Jossey-Bass 2006 which is the “bible” for policy governance. Check the UKPGA site and Caroline’s own site for more information.
MND Association heard
More evidence of Government valuing the work we do with clients comes with the following news from the Motor Neurone Disease Association – namely the announcement of an offer of £120k from the Third Sector Investment Programme in response to their Year of Care application. This is exactly the amount the Association requested for the three years to 2012 with the first tranche of £50k to be received in April 2009 subject to agreement of terms.
This award was made from the Innovation, Excellence & Service Development Fund and this approval is confirmation of the Association’s excellent contribution for people with MND. Hooray again (and sometimes we think we should just dedicate this whole blog to MND). We started this month by writing about an amazing piece of persuasive cinema ‘Mugged by MND’ and if you have not watched it on You Tube you should.
Whose Schools?
Back to our knitting with another Millar’s tale about parent participation in schools and how the definition of ‘good’ parents fostered by teachers was at some variance with a more modern view of parents having a real say – whose schools are they anyway? asks Caroline.
Lost your Larry, dear?
We have mentioned the Millar family (en passant) in the blog and Caroline’s daughters are our embryonic young digital natives panel. Caroline’s husband Tom Piper makes his living in an entirely separate sphere and so has not been mentioned. We make an exception to congratulate him (en passant) on the award of a ‘Larry’ – I think we have got the thesp speak right for the Laurence Olivier Awards – for his work on the costumes of the RSC history plays. The celebrations were not at all dampened by the fact that no sooner had Tom and his colleague Emma received the award than it was lost. All ransom demands received will be passed on.