How do quality accounts measure up?

"Quality accounts are a key mechanism through which health care organisations can demonstrate their focus on improving the quality of their service."

How do quality accounts measure up? Findings from the first year
C Foot, V Raleigh, S Ross
The King's Fund
January 2011

Read more here.

Provider economics impact assessment model

The Department in partnership with the NHS Confederation have produced the Provider economics commissioning impact assessment model. with associated guidance and summary to better understand provider economics.

The purpose of the model is to enable commissioners and providers:

• to analyse the potential impact of commissioning decisions on service continuity and provider sustainability
• to understand how the financial system risks of decommissioning and reconfiguring services will materialise in differing economic scenarios and whether services provide value for money.

Provider economics impact assessment model
Department of Health and NHS Confederation
21st December 2010

Read  more here.

Evaluation of the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines

"Previous estimates have suggested that each year between £100-£800 million worth of dispensed NHS medicines go unused and are ultimately discarded......This Report concludes that primary and community care medicines waste in the English NHS should not be regarded as a serious systemic problem. It is better seen as a normal challenge to be tackled via the continued development of existing strategies and care quality improvement initiatives."
Evaluation of the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines: final report
York Health Economics Consortium and The School of Pharmacy (University of London)
November 2010

Read more here.

Department of Health consultation on value-based system of pricing medicines

"The Department of Health is consulting on proposals for a new value-based system of pricing medicines which aims to give NHS patients better access to effective and innovative branded medicines. The consultation document sets out the principles that would underpin the move to value-based pricing, outlines how the new system could work across the UK and seeks views on a number of key issues."


A new value-based approach to the pricing of branded medicines - a consultation
Department of Health
December 2010

Read more here.

All responses to this public consultation must be received by 17 March 2011.

More for less 2009/10

"This briefing reviews primary care trust (PCT) spending in 2009/10, how trust income changed and whether the NHS made progress in becoming more efficient by providing as good or better care more cheaply. It updates More for Less, published in November 2009, which reviewed spending in 2008/09."

More for less 2009/10
Audit Commission
December 2010

Read more here.

Management of NHS hospital productivity

"This report examines how productivity in hospitals in England has changed over the last ten years, and the effectiveness of the Department's initiatives in driving productivity in hospitals."

Management of NHS hospital productivity
National Audit Office
December 2010

Read more here.

Getting better value from the NHS drug budget

"The NHS wastes billions on “me too” drugs that confer little or no added therapeutic benefit. James Moon and colleagues propose a way to restructure healthcare prescribing to get better value for money and persuade drug companies to invest in developing innovative drugs."

Getting better value from the NHS drug budget
JC Moon, AS Flett, BB Godman, AM Grosso, AS Wierzbicki
British Medical Journal, 2010; 341:c6449

Read more here.

An accompanying commentary, by David Phizackerley, is available here.