Teik Chooi Oh

We have published a new policy report, which makes the case for greater investment in diagnostic imaging equipment. Dr Stephen Harden, our Vice President for clinical radiology, discusses how equipment and IT will be a major challenge for the next government. Read his blog: https://lnkd.in/eaHGGBmb #Radiology #NHS #Imaging #Diagnostic

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🌐 Understanding the NHS Acute Capacity Challenge 🌐 The NHS faces significant challenges in managing acute capacity. Our latest analysis covers: 🔹 Current issues and resource strains 🔹 Potential solutions and innovations 🔹 The role of technology in alleviating pressures https://lnkd.in/gh2nTR7Q

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Very long elective waits improved as the NHS increased inpatient and daycase treatments at the end of 2023-24, Insource Ltd’s waiting times specialist Dr Rob Findlay reports in the Health Service Journal. The number of patients waiting longer than 65 weeks and 78 weeks from referral to treatment fell sharply in March, as the English #NHS increased activity towards the end of the financial year. More than 65-week waiters fell from 75,000 to 49,000 (compared with a target of zero, which was recently pushed back from March to the end of September 2024). More than 78-week waiters fell from 10,000 to 5,000 (target of zero, missed since April 2023). However, the waiting time experience of most patients did not change, as the national waiting list and waiting times remained almost steady at 7.54 million pathways and 44.7 weeks. If your part of the NHS wants a long term solution to the underlying causes of long waiting times for all patients, as opposed to just hitting targets in the short term, then get in touch. One of our elective care experts will be happy to talk through the issues https://lnkd.in/ejP99zNN Nadine Carey-Whitehead Graham Bennett Rob Davenport Tim Eltze Karen Hyde Greg Stevens Paige Elizabeth Hyde Adrian Owen Rachel Lane Donna Smith https://lnkd.in/eDrC4DAc

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Why is it that many midwives believe - incorrectly - that those who are not working in NHS clinical midwifery are not practising midwives? 🤔 This disregard for non-NHS clinical midwives spans the profession. At the recent RCM conference, I overheard a midwife joke about a colleague "going over to the dark side" into teaching. When I left my university lecturer role to set up Expectancy, some colleagues wished me well "on my retirement," despite knowing I was about to work harder than ever. Many midwives move into independent practice, offering complementary therapies, antenatal education, lactation support, or tongue-tie division. Maternity care is evolving. Midwives deserve choices in their work, too. The NHS doesn't own you, and charging for professional services is not a crime. Let's respect ALL midwifery colleagues, regardless of where and how they choose to work. Read my latest blog post to explore this issue in more depth - https://lnkd.in/eQfXfM_8 #MidwiferyMatters #MidwifeLife #RespectAllMidwives

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Working with the agency in the NHS offers a flexible way to collaborate across teams; however, this setup can become problematic when the agency staff income relies on those teams. As a result, agency staff may hesitate to speak up or could be exploited in allocation decisions. Conversely, there are instances where agency workers contribute to a toxic work environment as they perceive permanent staff as a threat with income-related pressures to encourage them to leave. It’s crucial to recognise these complexities and understand the role of management. Do they have a vested interest in retaining agency (nursing) staff who are less likely to voice complaints or escalate issues? #PsychologicalSafety #OurNHSPeople #Management #Nursing

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Could the NHS app really reduce GP workload? NHS England has claimed that new features on the NHS app could reduce GP call traffic by 20%, thereby decreasing GP workloads. While these claims sound encouraging, especially coming from a trusted institution like NHSE, I have some reservations. Let me provide more context. The new features on the NHS app would give patients information about waiting lists for secondary care services, so they wouldn’t have to call the GP practice to find out the same. This sounds great, but we need to put our fact-checker hat on and analyse the actual impact. 1️⃣ Minimal decrease in call Volume: 20% of our calls are NOT about patients waiting for their appointments. Therefore, the assumption that GP workload would be reduced by a fifth is not credible. 2️⃣ Unlikely to Decrease Workload: Despite patients knowing their waiting times, my gut instinct is that they will end up calling the surgery anyway, perhaps to see if they can speed up the process somehow. 3️⃣ Unrealistic Expectations: These sensationalist ‘gotcha’ stats and headlines promote unreasonable expectations for primary care. Patients might think we will work 20% less and expect to have appointments more readily available. This shows a limited understanding of what actually goes on. 4️⃣ Technical Faults: When there are technical faults with the app, and there will be — we all remember the NHS COVID-19 app—patients will call us, adding to the call traffic. TLDR: Yes, call traffic is a concern for practices up and down the country, and any way to find a way to address that would be sensible. However, the focus on reducing calls specifically enquiring about secondary care statuses seems strange. It’s a great thing that people can track their secondary care referrals through, but to dress it up as a boon to primary care is not entirely honest, to be candid. What do you think about these claims? Do you agree or disagree? Let’s get a conversation rolling! Keep your eyes peeled for some possible suggestions on how we can actually reduce GP call traffic. #primarycare #NHSE #NHSApp #GP #waitinglists

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Explore the latest #HSSIB report on enhancing #PatientSafety in the NHS, focusing on the vital role and integration of temporary staff. 🏥 A key step towards safer healthcare delivery. #NHS #NHSEngland #Healthcare #Hospital https://lnkd.in/eC2KBvCR

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Popular GP practice set for takeover by large provider on APMS contract 💔It’s disheartening to see another successful, popular GP practice being taken over by a large provider under an APMS contract. This follows the unfortunate trend of practices, once run by dedicated partners, being handed over due to increasing pressures. As I discussed in my post earlier this week, the drop in partner incomes by double digits in real terms is a major factor driving many practices to this point. 📈More and more, it seems that primary care is heading towards a model where partners feel forced to give up their contracts. This is a real shame because there are still many thriving practices out there. Can the RCGP or ICB do more by bringing together successful partners from multiple practices as advisors or consultants to help struggling practices? 🔹The direction we’re heading, with practices being 'bought' by private providers, is not the future I imagined for the NHS. We need to have a serious conversation about how to support GP partners and keep primary care sustainable without pushing it towards privatisation. 💬What are your thoughts on this shift? #NHS #primarycare #GP

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Patient safety is not the same as patient optimisation. In the NHS, we have minimum staffing levels which aims to provide a certain level of patient safety. That’s great. But simply keeping patients SAFE isn’t OPTIMISING their care. It’s reactive medical care where problems are dealt with when they appear. Damage limitation. Not proactive care where we seek how to not just get the patient back to baseline but how can we do it faster and possibly even RAISE their baseline level of health. Ultimately resource allocation & funding will be rate limiting steps here but how do we change the deeply ingrained institutional culture of accepting the minimum acceptable standard? #nhs #medicine #patientsafety #health #publichealth

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👩‍💻🩺 Measuring Performance in Clinical Outcomes - #Anaesthetics My Clinical Outcomes Ltd are thrilled to have supported this study on the feasibility of implementing routine outcomes and experience monitoring in the peri-operative setting at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board 📈 👏 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 #PROMs #PREMs #VBHC #measurewhatmatters

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The Patient Safety Learning PSIRP Finder is a master index of all Patient Safety Incident Response Plans from each NHS trust that has made one available. This is just one of the many important tools we have created and people are finding it very helpful. https://lnkd.in/eJyZHrhk

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Dental clinical standards and the role of managed clinical networks   Wendy Crew, PCC’s adviser outlines how to start to take forward the direction from the Darzi review in relation to dental services, building on work previously carried out in this short article. The report by Lord Darzi underlined the difficult situation that the NHS is currently in and that change needs to happen. One area that was highlighted is where patients end up in hospital when they may have been able to receive their care in the community. The importance of clinical pathways, where care being given by the right professionals rather than setting, has been recognised in dentistry since 2015. Supporting commissioning guides set out who can deliver what: Level 1 – a general dental practitioner undertaking the care that their standard competencies allows. Level 2 – a clinician with enhanced skills and experience. Level 3 – a specialist practitioner or consultant. The patient pathway will start in primary care, where all appropriate care should be given before being referred on if needed. Where in the past this may have gone straight into a secondary care provider, the pathway recognises that dentists with specialised training or experience may be able to provide care within primary or community settings and then if it is appropriate the patients journey can continue into secondary care. It is recognised that although level 3 care may require delivery by a consultant or specialist it does not have to be in the secondary care setting. These clinical standards provide a national framework for care delivery models but allows for localisation as appropriate to the needs of the patients in a particular area. Having standards alone though are not enough, as they need to be effectively implemented within commissioning organisations. To this end managed clinical networks (MCNs) were developed. These were put in place by NHS England teams. Following the delegation of dental commissioning to integrated care boards (ICBs) the responsibilities for these MCNs now sit with the ICB. MCN’s are a linked group of professionals and organisations from primary, secondary and tertiary care, working together, unconstrained by existing boundaries between services. These include relevant clinical staff, commissioners, and patient representatives. An MCN should be led by a local consultant in the relevant speciality.  They are asked to develop and implement the pathway for their speciality. Each ICB will have different governance structures to where MCNs report into but whatever that looks like, they should be seen as a key part of the commissioning process, they do not work in silo and should be a voice within the local dental network (LDN) to contribute to the planning, prioritisation and delivery of dental care for patients. ICBs now have an opportunity to review their MCNs. PCC would be happy to support any ICB who wishes to undertake this review. Contact [email protected]

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In this webinar, gain knowledge on the respiratory support landscape in the NHS and hear practical insights on the management of Acute NIV, NIVO scoring and the workforce implications of providing enhanced respiratory care. Register here: tinyurl.com/23z7jvty #HealthWebinar

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In this webinar, gain knowledge on the respiratory support landscape in the NHS and hear practical insights on the management of Acute NIV, NIVO scoring and the workforce implications of providing enhanced respiratory care. Register here: tinyurl.com/23z7jvty #HealthWebinar

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Save time and increase productivity with game changing medical speech recognition. ✓ Convert speech to text, in any application ✓ Automatically code clinical information ✓ Navigate and control applications with your voice ✓ Automatically define medical terms for patients ➡️ Book a demonstration and see it for yourself at lexacom.co.uk/echo #nhs #primarycare #generalpractice #speechrecognition

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