Health Matters | Paul Corrigan's blog

Last week’s autumn statement underlined all the other economic news and left the nation with the recognition that hard economic times are here to stay for a lot longer than we might have hoped.

Some of the economic statistics about the difference in our living standards in this decade compared with others are really shocking but are worthwhile rehearsing.

Since World War Two the previous decade when living standards took a bit of a knock as compared to others was the 10 years between 1973 and 1983.There were ups and downs during that decade, but taken overall average living standards only increased by 14% over the decade. I say ‘only’ 14% because this was, when compared to every other 10 year period, the most difficult. In every other decade improvement in living standards were higher. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I have published a pamphlet through an organisation called Social Finance that argues for the use of a form of investment called the Social Impact Bond into the NHS. It’s called “A new way to invest in better healthcare (Paul Corrigan Social Finance Sept 2011)”. In one way it’s a radical idea because it argues that the NHS needs to develop resource allocation that moves beyond the year-on-year financing dictated by Treasury Rules. In another it’s very commonplace in most other areas of our lives. We invest money this year to make money in future years and we can ‘rollover’ the cost and benefit of the investment, and the costs, on a year-on-year basis. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past year I have been working with a number of organisations to think through how the NHS can achieve much better outcomes by encouraging patients take on much greater self management of their long term conditions. Whilst few people in the NHS would ever say that they are against self management as a form of care, it has failed to become part of the central activity of the NHS and remains on the periphery. Read the rest of this entry »

Education and training in the NHS use a great deal of our public resources. This investment plays not only a very significant role in developing the NHS, but also plays a much wider role in developing our society. The fact that tens of thousands of teenagers in every generation work hard to get into clinical education demonstrates the central role that the NHS plays in people’s lives. Read the rest of this entry »

A moment’s indulgence for the blog writer from the blog reader.

Wednesday’s publication of the Nuffield report on the four different home countries NHS reform policies left me shouting at the Today programme with much glee. (And that is not a reaction that ‘Today’ often draws out of me.) Not only had they published a research report that went beyond the orthodox finding of on the one hand and the other, but Jennifer Dixon as CEO of the Nuffield was on the radio defending the findings.
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Meeting for the Smith Institute

Off to the seaside to talk at a fringe meeting at Labour Party Conference. For those who have never been to political party conferences it is not the main set pieces in the Conference that are the main attraction but the fringe meetings. Hundreds and hundreds of meetings packed into lunchtimes, breakfasts and early evenings.  At the beginning of the week people usually fill their diaries with events they want to go and then spend all their time rushing between them.
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What are the parameters of world class decommissioning?

If world class commissioning consists in part of PCTs commissioning services that provide very good health and health care outcomes and doing it really well, then world class decommissioning involves stopping the provision of services that are less than optimal in health care outcomes or value for money and doing this very well.
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Why World class decommissioning is more important than world class commissioning

On September 16^th the DH launched the second year of the World Class Commissioning Process. This is an important step forward in a number of ways.

• First, this is the first time the DH has recognised that improvement assurance systems require, if they are to really create improvement, needs iteration. It has to happen in a similar way every year so that people are not just randomly examined, but improve on an annual basis.
• Second, they have recognised that whilst the assurance process is very similar to last year with the same rhythm to the process, there are some stark differences to the development of a five year plan in the autumn of 2009 from the autumn of 2008 and these all concern the relationship between resource and outcomes. The same resource will have to buy much better outcomes.

So the process starts with a clear definition of what commissioning is all about.  
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