Thursday 1 December 2011

Read it, read it, read it

There are lots of documents out this week including the Department of Health’s Operating Framework for 2012-13, the interim report of the Futures Forum and the first publication of the NHS Commissioning Board – the Commissioning Operating Framework – engagement document.

They are all key bits of the jig-saw and if you have a look through them you will start to get a clearer idea of where our health system will be in April 2013. That’s D-day for the new world. The NHS Futures Forum gets the ABC gold writing star. Accuracy, brevity and clarity:



  • Patients must have better online access to services and to their health and care records to which I would say Renal Patient View

  • Re-designing health and care services to integrate better around individuals and their family’s needs and allowing for better ways of delivering seamless, integrated care for individuals through the transition to which I would say have a look at the Hugh Raynor integrated diabetic/kidney disease model on NHS Evidence (link)

  • Public Health England and the NHS Commissioning Board to set out what their partnership will look like and explain how NHS Commissioners can obtain population health advicetake a look at the Atlas of Variation, the NHS Kidney Care CKD profiles and programme budgeting

The same themes echo through the other documents and although you couldn’t say the word “kidney” is peppered through the recommendations, nearly all of them are relevant to people with kidney disease. Remember, most people with kidney disease have other long term conditions as well and often social needs. The high level national prioriites that are closely aligned to the needs of people with kidney disease are the low hanging fruit. Achieving the best possible kidney care across the country will have some difficult bits as well but the ingenuity of the kidney community never fails to astound me and whatever your local kidney care priorities may be, others working on the same issues may have good ideas of solutions you can pinch.

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