Last year, we posted a guest blog by Pauline Heslop, a researcher at the Norah Fry Research Centre, who set out the alarming findings of a confidential enquiry into premature deaths of people with learning disabilities. The enquiry found that people with learning disabilities die significantly younger in England and Wales than people without learning [read the full story…]
This work, developed by accountancy firm Mazars LLP, has been commissioned by NHS Confederation and Strategic Health Authority Mental Health Leads. It is a diagnostic tool aimed at mental health commissioners working for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), helping them to identify where the gaps are in their local service provision and what they need to [read the full story…]
A timely report from the Nuffield Trust details the background to the current policy on personal health budgets (due to become effective in April 2014) and some important learning for commissioners and policy makers. From next year, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) will be required to offer personal health budgets to patients receiving continuing health care [read the full story…]
Introduction Tackling teenage pregnancy has been high on the political agenda since 1999, when the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy was published. Teenagers who become pregnant probably need more support than older mothers-to-be. Young women often become pregnant because they come from unsupported backgrounds and have no ambition or self-belief, and where they have access to alcohol [read the full story…]
Introduction When a child becomes ill, the first clinician they meet is most likely to be their GP. This report is the result of a collaboration between the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Department of Health to identify how to [read the full story…]
This new briefing from the NHS Confederation introduces joint personal budgets for health and social care. It gives the context behind their development, explains how they might work and lists some of the issues that need to be considered before they could be used at scale. Delivering integrated care is obviously hugely beneficial to the [read the full story…]
As you know, we here at the Learning Disabilities Elf are committed to bringing you the evidence on what works in supporting people with learning disabilities. Occasionally though, we come across research that is not specifically focused on learning disabilities, but might be of interest. This review by the NIHR School for Social Care Research [read the full story…]
Following on from the publication of the NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare and the NHS Atlas for Children and Young People, there is now an atlas which looks at the variations in social care services across England. The report, put together by Health Mandate, focuses on four main outcomes: Enhancing quality of life for [read the full story…]
Frequent readers won’t be surprised to read we are always keen to support improvements in the quality of research. One of the clarion calls of many systematic reviews is for better quality studies to increase the numbers of trials that meet inclusion criteria. It was with great interest therefore that we read of the commissioning [read the full story…]
Frequent readers won’t be surprised to read that us elves are always keen to support improvements in the quality of research. One of the clarion calls of many systematic reviews is for better quality studies to increase the numbers of trials that meet inclusion criteria. It was with great interest therefore that we read of [read the full story…]
