Caroline has been a medical librarian in a variety of NHS and academic roles since 1999, working in academic, primary and secondary care settings, service improvement, knowledge management, and on several high profile national projects.
She has a PhD in Computing and currently develops resources to support evidence-based cost and quality, including QIPP @lert, a blog highlighting key reports from health care and other sectors related to service improvement and QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity, Prevention). She also delivers training and resources to support evidence identification and appraisal for cost, quality, service improvement, and leadership.
She is co-author of the Searching Skills Toolkit, which aims to support health professionals' searching for best quality clinical and non-clinical evidence. Her research interests are health management, commissioning, public health, consumer health information literacy, and knowledge management.
She currently works as a Knowledge and Evidence Specialist for Public Health England, and works on the Commissioning Elf in her spare time.
In this blog, Caroline De Brún considers the latest research evidence on leadership in health care and key characteristics required for effective leadership, published in a new report by the King’s Fund.
The aim of this literature review from the Policy Research Unit in Commissioning at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is to help decision-makers support acute care, by moving some services out of the hospital, and into the community.
This new report from The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust provides guidance for CCGs working in partnership with GPs and local authorities, as new co-commissioning arrangements are launched.
This is a summary of an evidence scan produced by The Health Foundation about lessons the NHS can learn from other countries about managing financial crisis.
Aimed at commissioners, clinical commissioning groups, commissioning support units, this evidence-based paper aims to bring some clarity to the current and future contractual models, as “many clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have started to develop novel contracting and commissioning tools”.
The Health Service Journal has published this supplement to highlight the successes of Commissioning Support Units (CSUs), and to discuss their next steps, as they “enter a competitive market next year”, where they have to bid to get a place on the lead provider framework. There has been immense change since CSUs were first launched, [read the full story…]
This guide is the result of discussions with health professionals and people with diabetes Types 1 and 2, and surveys investigating the levels of service provision in London. The reason for this work is because people with from diabetes often suffer from mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, phobias, adjustment to their condition, eating [read the full story…]
This comprehensive resource has been written for all the organisations involved in delivering quality services, in particular commissioners and local authorities, who “are responsible for commissioning social care services for adults and children.” The document starts off by explaining what the NHS means by quality, looking at three dimensions, as defined by Lord Ara Darzi [read the full story…]
Caroline De Brun highlights the new guidance for commissioners of mental health services for people from black and minority ethnic communities, produced by the Joint Commissioning Panel for Mental Health.
