Friday, 27 July
On Wednesday I attended a meeting at the Academy of Medical
Royal Colleges, which saw the chairmanship handed over from
Professor Sir Neil Douglas to Professor Terence Stevenson. Terence
gave his
first interview since being elected to the Society
Guardian earlier this week. As one of the two Vice-Chairs
of the Academy, I will be taking forward work on quality and
workforce.
Thursday saw me attend a meeting of the Mental Health
Collaborative. The Collaborative is made up of leads for mental
health nursing, psychology, occupational therapy, social work and
psychiatry. We are all, through our respective members and Freedom
of Information requests, building up a more solid picture of what
is happening to workforce. We will combine the information we all
have on cuts, as we believe we can have more influence as one
voice.
We very much rely on information flow directly from members, and I
am always keen to hear your views. Latterly, physical health
integrated services are being delivered with improved working
across, into and with social care. When mental health once led the
way, we need to be careful we don’t fall behind. And we need to
seize every opportunity to understand and deliver on how we can
improve integrated care and treatment.
Earlier this week,
an article (subscriber content) appeared in the HSJ
suggesting that plans to implement a payment by results tariff for
adult mental health services next year have been delayed due to
concern about data quality. The Department of Health has confirmed
to the magazine that the national rollout will now not take place
within the 2013-14 financial year – though no alternative
implementation date has been given. This is something that our
College's Special Advisor for PbR, Dr Bohdan Solomka, is looking
into. If there is a delay, or phased approach on PbR, I hope that
the Department of Health can use it to good effect, and learn from
some of the long-term conditions Year-of-Care funding
models.
In other news, I see the Health Education England
named their senior management team yesterday. The next phase
will see the appointment of director of nursing and a medical
director who will advise the HEE board and senior management team
on quality issues.
I want to finish by mentioning the Olympics - it's very exciting
times for those of our members who are volunteers during the
Games. I got firmly into the Olympic spirit this morning by
going bellringing
with the grandchildren!
Sue
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