Health care reform is for the most part governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to:
A trauma center is a hospital equipped and staffed to provide care for patients suffering from major traumatic injuries such as falls, motor vehicle collisions, or gunshot wounds. A trauma center may also refer to an emergency department without the presence of specialized services to care for victims of major trauma.
Clinical governance is a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care within the National Health Service, (NHS). Clinical governance became important in health care after the Bristol heart scandal in 1995, during which an anaesthetist, Dr Stephen Bolsin, exposed the high mortality rate for paediatric cardiac surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. It was originally elaborated within the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS), and its most widely cited formal definition describes it as:
A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continually improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish.
NHS Digital is the trading name of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which is the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England, particularly those involved with the National Health Service (England).
A consultant pharmacist is a pharmacist who works as a consultant providing expert advice on the use of medications or on the provision of pharmacy services to medical institutions, medical practices and individual patients.
General Medical Services (GMS) is the range of healthcare that is provided by General Practitioners as part of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. The NHS specifies what GPs, as independent contractors, are expected to do and provides funding for this work through arrangements known as the General Medical Services Contract. Today, the GMS contract is a UK-wide arrangement with minor differences negotiated by each of the four UK health departments. In 2013 60% of practices had a GMS contract as their principle contract. The contract has sub-sections and not all are compulsory. The other forms of contract are the Personal Medical Services or Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts. They are designed to encourage practices to offer services over and above the standard contract. Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts, unlike the other contracts, can be awarded to anyone, not just GPs, don't specify standard essential services, and are time limited. A new contract is issued each year.
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland. It operates 14 territorial NHS Boards across Scotland, seven special non-geographic health boards and NHS Health Scotland.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is a system for the performance management and payment of general practitioners (GPs) in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was introduced as part of the new general medical services (GMS) contract in April 2004, replacing various other fee arrangements.
Unwarranted variation in health care service delivery refers to medical practice pattern variation that cannot be explained by illness, medical need, or the dictates of evidence-based medicine. It is one of the causes of low value care often ignored by health systems.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded national healthcare system for England and one of the four National Health Services for each constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world. Primarily funded through the government funding and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England provides healthcare to all legal English residents, with most services free at the point of use. Some services, such as emergency treatment and treatment of infectious diseases, are free for everyone, including visitors.
Healthcare in England is mainly provided by England's public health service, the National Health Service, that provides healthcare to all permanent residents of the United Kingdom that is free at the point of use and paid for from general taxation. Since health is a devolved matter, there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in England, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing to pay.
The Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP) began in late 1998 when a broadly based steering group developed a dataset for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). This allowed clinicians to examine the management of myocardial infarction within their hospitals against targets specified by the National Service Framework (NSF) for coronary heart disease. The audit project produces annual reports on "How the NHS manages heart attacks" to show the performance of hospitals, ambulance services and cardiac networks in England and Wales against national standards and targets for the care of heart attack patients.
The NHS Constitution for England is a document that sets out the objectives of the National Health Service, the rights and responsibilities of the various parties involved in health care, and the guiding principles which govern the service. First published on 21 January 2009 it was one of a number of recommendations in Lord Darzi’s report ‘High Quality Care for All’ as part of a ten-year plan to provide the highest quality of care and service for patients in England. Previously these rights and responsibilities had evolved in common law or through English or EU law, or were policy pledges by the NHS and UK government have been written into the document. It can be seen as a development of the ideas that began with the introduction of the Patient's Charter in 1991.
Health care rationing refers to mechanisms that are used to allocate health care resources.
The Patient Advice and Liaison Service, or PALS, is an English National Health Service body created to provide advice and support to NHS patients and their relatives and carers. The scheme was announced in the NHS Plan 2000. Pilot schemes were set up in 2001, with full nationwide implementation complete by 2002.
Patient choice is a concept introduced into the NHS in England. Most patients are supposed to be able to choose the clinician whom they want to provide them with healthcare and that money to pay for the service should follow their choice. Before the advent of the internal market, in principle, a GP could refer a patient to any specialist in the UK. When contracts were introduced in 1990 these were called extracontractual referrals. From 1999 the concept of Out of Area Treatments was developed. These referrals were not necessarily related to choice made by a patient. Specialised treatments were not, and are not, available in every area.
In Practice Systems Limited is a health informatics company based in London.
The NHS Long Term Plan, also known as the NHS 10-Year Plan is a document published by NHS England on 7 January 2019, which sets out its priorities for healthcare over the next 10 years and shows how the NHS funding settlement will be used. It was published by NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens and Prime Minister Theresa May. The plan marked the official abandonment of the policy of competition in the English NHS, which was established by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Integrated care systems are to be created across England by 2021, Clinical Commissioning Groups are to be merged and NHS England with NHS Improvement appear to be merging, unofficially, though this is all to happen without actually repealing the legislation.
