Emergency admissions

With the showers has come a certain malaise tinged with queasy uncertainty.

This could be a post-Bill slump in the NHS, a response to the long grind of making cuts with no end in sight, and the sheer weight of detail to be worked through with respect to the mass reorganisation outlined in the now Health and Social Care Act.

The queasiness extends beyond health, look at local Government for example facing an average six per cent cuts rather than a ‘flat real’ settlement as in health.

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With the multiple challenges of tightening NHS finances, an ageing population and the growing burden of chronic illnesses, integrated care is seen by some as a key tool for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of care.

Many people (including people at Nuffield Trust) argue that integration can lead to both better outcomes and experiences for those who use services. In 2008 the Department of Health sought applications from sites that were interested in developing new models of clinically-led integrated care.

16 sites were eventually selected as pilots for the integrated...

Within the research group of the Nuffield Trust we have a number of studies that use the anonymised linkage of health and social care records. The results of one study are due to be published in the Journal of Health Services Research and Policy (JHSRP) soon but they have left us with a puzzle.

We found that from a population of older people (aged 75+) in four local authority areas, 14 per cent used some form of local authority social care over a one year...

OK, so everyone is fed up with the Bill, just getting on with it, and focusing on having a break. But here are a few things from us to ponder at the end of this unusual year.

Ideological tussles will not go away next year. Alan Garber, now Provost at Harvard and our Rock Carling fellow this year, focuses his gimlet eye on one battle line: what place for competition, what dose, what unit of, and how could it encourage integrated care rather than get in the way.

Alan brings together his long experience of analysis in the US, and his...

Earlier this autumn, I had the opportunity to visit the Hospital2Home virtual ward project in New York. Like other virtual wards, this project aims to reduce the risk of unplanned hospital admission for people at high predicted risk of admission. 

I was particularly interested to visit this project because it has strong partnerships with health care, social care and charitable organisations, and it cares for some of the most vulnerable people in...

The joys of policy analysis mean the NHS Operating Framework is obligatory reading. 'Grip' is its message, no surprises there. But tucked in amongst the pages four things caught my eye.

Para 3.29 requires commissioners to link patient NHS numbers to contractual payments by March 2013. By then, it should be possible to identify routinely how much NHS expenditure goes on each individual – a crucial milestone to identify efficiencies. My bet is on information to give the NHS the biggest lift over the coming decade.

The second was para 4.24 – in response to...

Keen readers of this blog will already know about the importance of risk prediction in health. As my colleague, Dr Geraint Lewis, has pointed out: “neither doctors, nurses nor case managers [are] able to predict which patients [are] at highest risk of readmission to hospital.”

So, if the NHS is to target effectively the ever increasing rate of emergency admissions, it is clear that it needs some help from predictive risk tools.

When the...

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Toronto virtual ward as part of my Management Fellowship role working with researchers at the Nuffield Trust who are evaluating the costs and benefits of the virtual wards in Croydon, Devon and Wandsworth.

The virtual wards work just like hospital wards, using the same staffing, systems and daily routines, except that the people being cared for stay in their own homes throughout.

The purpose of...

Earlier this year, the Journal of General Internal Medicine published new research, which showed that neither doctors, nurses nor case managers were able to predict which patients were at highest risk of readmission to hospital. 

This finding is important because if we are to tackle the health problems that manifest as unplanned hospital admissions then we need to be able to predict and prevent these events at the individual level. Unplanned admissions cost the NHS an ...

Starting in April 2011, NHS hospitals in England will not be paid for “avoidable” readmissions occurring within 30 days of discharge.  As Trust finance officers begin steeling themselves for this change, they may be interested in a Canadian project designed to predict and avoid such readmissions. 

Known as the Toronto Post-Discharge Virtual Ward, the project borrows a concept first developed...

Rates of emergency admissions to hospital have been rising for many years, and if they continue it could prompt major financial problems for the NHS, particularly heading into a period of constrained funding.
 
Although there is no shortage of opinions and ideas about what underlies this trend, relatively little is actually known about detailed patterns and causes.  
 
Here at the Nuffield Trust, we have used nationally available routine administrative data to look at the rise in emergency admissions over the past few years.
 
Our analysis showed that...