The NHS if

"‘The NHS if’ is a collection of essays that explores hypothetical scenarios and their impact on the future of health and care. The King's Fund are asking a small number of experts – some of them members of staff at The King’s Fund and others external experts in their fields – to write short essays that consider ‘what if’ questions about health and care in England. We’ll be publishing these essays on this website throughout 2016.

The aim is to encourage new thinking and debate about possible future scenarios that could fundamentally change health and care. The essays cover three themes: the NHS and society; medicine, data and technology; and how the NHS works."

Read more here.

Commissioning standards integrated urgent care

"These standards build on the success of NHS 111 and will help to deliver the benefits for all patients set out in the Urgent and Emergency Care review led by Sir Bruce Keogh. The intent is to enable commissioners to deliver a functionally integrated 24/7 urgent care service that is the ‘front door’ of the NHS and which provides the public with access to both treatment and clinical advice. This will include NHS 111 providers and GP Out-of-hours services, community services, ambulance services, emergency departments and social care."

Commissioning standards integrated urgent care
NHS England
September 2015

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Enabling local implementation of sustainable urgent and emergency care models

“Efforts should focus on building an effective community offer. This will require adequate investment to transform primary, community and social care – while ensuring that acute and emergency care remains sustainable.”

Rip off the sticking plaster now: Enabling the local implementation of sustainable urgent and emergency care models in 2015/16
NHS Confederation
April 2015

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Acute hospitals and integrated care: from hospitals to health systems

"If the health and social care system is to respond to the changing needs of the population, and also address the financial challenges it faces, acute hospitals will need to play a fundamentally different role within local health economies."

Acute hospitals and integrated care: From hospitals to health system
C Naylor, H Alderwick, M Honeyman
The King's Fund
March 2015

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Moving services out of hospital

"‘Scaling up’ primary and community services in order to provide more care outside hospitals will require general practices and their community service colleagues to work together in new ways."

Moving services out of hospital: Joining up general practice and community services?
D Bramwell, K Checkland, P Allen, S Peckham
Policy Research Unit in Commissioning and the Healthcare System, Department of Health
August 2014

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Managing quality in community health care services

"This paper reports on the findings from a small primary research study exploring how community health services providers define, measure, manage and improve the quality of care."

Managing quality in community health care services
C Foot, L Sonola, L Bennett, B Fitzsimons, V Raleigh, S Gregory
The King's Fund
December 2014

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How outcomes-based commissioning can help unlock the potential of community services

"Commissioning based on outcomes has the potential to facilitate the transformation of care and is one way of overcoming the barrier of current payment mechanisms that do not support integrated care."

Beginning with the end in mind: how outcomes-based commissioning can help unlock the potential of community services
NHS Confederation
September 2014

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Community services: How they can transform care

"Significant numbers of patients occupying hospital beds could be cared for in other settings but only if suitable services are available and can be accessed easily."

Community services: How they can transform care
N Edwards
The King's Fund
February 2014

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The delivery of 21st century services

"The identification of new scientific and clinical knowledge will impact on patient care through the development of new technology and the introduction of new ways of working."

The delivery of 21st century services: The implications for the evolution of the healthcare science workforce
NHS Health Education England
February 2014

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Free access to special issue of Journal of Integrated Care

This special issue of Journal of Integrated Care focuses on commissioning and the third sector, and can be freely read until 14th December 2013 by visiting Emerald Publishers using the following login details:
username: integrated
password: emerald2013

Articles include:

• Evaluating a third sector community service following stroke
• Co-producing care services in rural areas
• Singing from the same hymn sheet? Commissioning of preventative services from the third sector

Implementation of a hospitalist programme in a community hospital

"Compared to traditional family physicians, hospitalists appear to improve measures of quality and resource utilization."

Does implementation of a hospitalist program in a Canadian community hospital improve measures of quality of care and utilization? an observational comparative analysis of hospitalists vs. traditional care providers
V Yousefi, CAKY Chong
BMC Health Services Research, 2013, 13:204

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Older people and emergency bed use

"There is significant variation in the use of hospital beds by people over 65 admitted as an emergency."

Older people and emergency bed use: exploring variation
C Imison, E Poteliakhoff, J Thompson
The King's Fund
August 2012

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Celebrating early implementer achievements - one year on

This report presents the outcomes of twenty-six Early Implementer Sites (EISs), which were established in March 2011 with the aim of delivering the full health visiting service vision and helping lead a step-change in the way these services are provided across the country.

Celebrating early implementer achievements - one year on
Department of Health
June 2012

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Community nursing: transforming health care

"The RCN wants these case studies of excellent community nursing to inform, inspire and persuade people to scrutinise their current community nursing services and identify how they can be both expanded and enhanced – for the benefit of their local population."

Community nursing: transforming health care
Royal College of Nursing
November 2011

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The role of networks in healthcare

In this issue brief, researchers describe how networks helped community health centres to use electronic health records to improve chronic and preventive care and the barriers they faced.


The role of networks in improving quality of electronic records in community health centres.
RH Miller, CE West
The Commonwealth Fund
August 2011

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Getting out of hospital?

"The evidence for shifting acute inpatient and day case services from hospitals into the community."

Getting out of hospital?
The Health Foundation
June 2011

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Transforming community services

The Transforming Community Services programme has developed 43 indicators for quality improvement.

Transforming community services
Department of Health
April 2011

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Transforming community services

The Transforming Community Services programme has developed 43 indicators for quality improvement.

Transforming community services: demonstrating and measuring achievement: community indicators for quality improvement
Department of Health
March 2011

Read more here.