Download or read book Delivering the cancer reform strategy written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-11-18 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improvements and efficiencies have been made in key areas of cancer care since the Cancer Reform Strategy was published in 2007. The NAO estimates that cancer cost the NHS approximately £6.3 billion in 2008-09, but it is not clear if the implementation of the Strategy is achieving value for money. Reported spending on cancer care varies between PCTs - in 2008-09 varying from £55 to £154 per head - and there is unexplained variation from year to year. Significant reductions have been made in the number of days cancer patients spend in hospital - largely as a result of increasingly treating patients as day cases. The Strategy aimed to minimise emergency admissions for cancer patients, but these are still increasing, with wide variations between PCTs and poor understanding of the reasons for those variations. There are opportunities to achieve better outcomes and free up resources. Reducing the average length of stay in hospital to the level of the best performing PCTs, efficiencies worth some £113 million a year could be achieved. If the number of inpatient admissions per new cancer diagnosis was reduced to the level of the best performing PCT, bed days equivalent to around £106 million each year could be saved. Radiotherapy machines could be used more productively to help the NHS meet increasing demand. High quality information is essential to be able to commission services successfully and to monitor performance. Some information on cancer has improved, but significant gaps still remain.

Download or read book Delivering the cancer reform strategy written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the Department of Health's and the NHS's performance in delivering cancer services; improving information on activity, cost and outcomes of cancer services; and how the Department intends to deliver cost-effective cancer services in the new NHS. The NHS spent £6.3 billion on cancer services in 2008-09. Tackling Cancer has been a priority for the Department since its ten year NHS Cancer Plan was published in 2000. In 2007 the Department published its five year Cancer Reform Strategy (the Strategy) to deliver improved patient outcomes. The NHS has made significant progress in delivering important aspects of cancer services, with falling mortality rates and consistent achievement of the cancer waiting times targets. However, early diagnosis does not happen often enough. And the gap in survival rates between England and the best European countries has not been closed. There remain wide, unexplained variations in the performance of cancer services and in the types of treatment available across the country; and significant gaps in information about important aspects of cancer services, in particular information on chemotherapy, on follow-up treatment, and on the stage that a patient's cancer has reached at the time of diagnosis. The Department cannot yet measure the impact of the Strategy on key outcomes, such as survival rates, and does not know if cancer services are being commissioned cost-effectively, due to poor data on costs and because outcomes data are not sufficiently timely. The Department must ensure the collection of high quality, comprehensive and timely data.

Download or read book Delivering High Quality Cancer Care written by Committee on Improving the Quality of Cancer Care: Addressing the Challenges of an Aging Population and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, approximately 14 million people have had cancer and more than 1.6 million new cases are diagnosed each year. However, more than a decade after the Institute of Medicine (IOM) first studied the quality of cancer care, the barriers to achieving excellent care for all cancer patients remain daunting. Care often is not patient-centered, many patients do not receive palliative care to manage their symptoms and side effects from treatment, and decisions about care often are not based on the latest scientific evidence. The cost of cancer care also is rising faster than many sectors of medicine--having increased to $125 billion in 2010 from $72 billion in 2004--and is projected to reach $173 billion by 2020. Rising costs are making cancer care less affordable for patients and their families and are creating disparities in patients' access to high-quality cancer care. There also are growing shortages of health professionals skilled in providing cancer care, and the number of adults age 65 and older--the group most susceptible to cancer--is expected to double by 2030, contributing to a 45 percent increase in the number of people developing cancer. The current care delivery system is poorly prepared to address the care needs of this population, which are complex due to altered physiology, functional and cognitive impairment, multiple coexisting diseases, increased side effects from treatment, and greater need for social support. Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis presents a conceptual framework for improving the quality of cancer care. This study proposes improvements to six interconnected components of care: (1) engaged patients; (2) an adequately staffed, trained, and coordinated workforce; (3) evidence-based care; (4) learning health care information technology (IT); (5) translation of evidence into clinical practice, quality measurement and performance improvement; and (6) accessible and affordable care. This report recommends changes across the board in these areas to improve the quality of care. Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis provides information for cancer care teams, patients and their families, researchers, quality metrics developers, and payers, as well as HHS, other federal agencies, and industry to reevaluate their current roles and responsibilities in cancer care and work together to develop a higher quality care delivery system. By working toward this shared goal, the cancer care community can improve the quality of life and outcomes for people facing a cancer diagnosis.

Download or read book Holland Frei Cancer Medicine written by Robert C. Bast, Jr. and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-03-10 with total page 2004 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Holland-Frei Cancer Medicine, Ninth Edition, offers a balanced view of the most current knowledge of cancer science and clinical oncology practice. This all-new edition is the consummate reference source for medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, internists, surgical oncologists, and others who treat cancer patients. A translational perspective throughout, integrating cancer biology with cancer management providing an in depth understanding of the disease An emphasis on multidisciplinary, research-driven patient care to improve outcomes and optimal use of all appropriate therapies Cutting-edge coverage of personalized cancer care, including molecular diagnostics and therapeutics Concise, readable, clinically relevant text with algorithms, guidelines and insight into the use of both conventional and novel drugs Includes free access to the Wiley Digital Edition providing search across the book, the full reference list with web links, illustrations and photographs, and post-publication updates

Download or read book A New Deal for Cancer written by Abbe R. Gluck and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unprecedented constellation of experts—leading cancer doctors, policymakers, cutting-edge researchers, national advocates, and more—explore the legacy and the shortcomings from the fifty-year war on cancer and look ahead to the future. The longest war in the modern era, longer than the Cold War, has been the war on cancer. Cancer is a complex, evasive enemy, and there was no quick victory in the fight against it. But the battle has been a monumental test of medical and scientific research and fundraising acumen, as well as a moral and ethical challenge to the entire system of medicine. In A New Deal for Cancer, some of today’s leading thinkers, activists, and medical visionaries describe the many successes in the long war and the ways in which our deeper failings as a society have held us back from a more complete success. Together they present an unrivaled and nearly complete map of the battlefield across dimensions of science, government, equity, business, the patient provider experience, and more, documenting our emerging understanding of cancer’s many unique dimensions and offering bold new plans to enable the American health care system to deliver progress and hope to all patients.

Download or read book Cancer Care for the Whole Patient written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-03-19 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cancer care today often provides state-of-the-science biomedical treatment, but fails to address the psychological and social (psychosocial) problems associated with the illness. This failure can compromise the effectiveness of health care and thereby adversely affect the health of cancer patients. Psychological and social problems created or exacerbated by cancer-including depression and other emotional problems; lack of information or skills needed to manage the illness; lack of transportation or other resources; and disruptions in work, school, and family life-cause additional suffering, weaken adherence to prescribed treatments, and threaten patients' return to health. Today, it is not possible to deliver high-quality cancer care without using existing approaches, tools, and resources to address patients' psychosocial health needs. All patients with cancer and their families should expect and receive cancer care that ensures the provision of appropriate psychosocial health services. Cancer Care for the Whole Patient recommends actions that oncology providers, health policy makers, educators, health insurers, health planners, researchers and research sponsors, and consumer advocates should undertake to ensure that this standard is met.

Download or read book The Future of the Public s Health in the 21st Century written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-02-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Download or read book Improving Healthcare Quality in Europe Characteristics Effectiveness and Implementation of Different Strategies written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

Download or read book Equity and excellence written by Great Britain: Department of Health and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Equity and Excellence : Liberating the NHS: Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health by Command of Her Majesty

Download or read book National Health Service landscape review written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the value for money risks and implications of the Health and Social Care Bill. The Bill proposes a new model for the NHS focusing on patient outcomes. The proposals are intended to transform the NHS in England into a highly devolved, market-based model in which local commissioners and providers of health services are freed from central control, with an increased say for local authorities, patients and the public. Whilst the reforms could complement the imperative of achieving £20 billion efficiency gains by 2014/15, the reorganisation presents an additional challenge for the NHS. The health reforms are still at an early stage and key questions have yet to be addressed. It is vital that the Department creates robust accountability structures so that Parliament and the public can properly follow the taxpayers' pound and hold those responsible to account. The Committee is concerned that the Department has not yet developed a high quality risk management protocol for either the commissioning or providing bodies. The Department acknowledges that some health trusts and some GP practices have some way to go to achieve foundation trust status or become commissioning consortia. The Department must have effective systems in place to deal with failure so that whatever happens, the interests of both patients and taxpayers are protected. This report provides an overview of aspects of the reforms where Parliament requires clarification and draws out a number of risks associated with the transition to the new model that need to be managed.

Download or read book Spending reduction in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around half of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's budget is spent in foreign currencies. In 2008, the Treasury removed the protection it had previously provided to the Department against exchange rate fluctuations. The FCO did not have the expertise or experience to effectively manage the risk of a fall in exchange rates, and that the Treasury imposed poor value for money conditions on forward purchasing foreign currency. As a result of a decline in the value of sterling, in September 2009 the FCO faced an overspend of £91 million on its 2009-10 budget (£72 million centrally and £18.8 million overseas), out of its total budget of £1.6 billion. It made drastic cuts to reduce this overspend. The FCO did well to reduce spending so quickly, which enabled it to live within its budget. However, many of the spending cuts made were short term in nature, and involved simply delaying or stopping some activities, rather than making lasting efficiency improvements. Not enough was done to monitor and measure the impact of the cuts and there is a risk that such short term cuts can lead to increased spending in the future. The FCO needs to achieve sustainable reductions in running costs of £100 million over the next four years, and sees the overseas estate as a potential source of these efficiencies and income. But in the past, high charges have had the unintended consequence of discouraging other government departments from sharing premises.

Download or read book Office of Rail Regulation written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Office of Rail Regulation (the Regulator) is the independent economic and safety regulator of the rail industry in England, Scotland and Wales. The Regulator's duties include promoting economy and efficiency in the rail industry with much of its work focusing on Network Rail, the owner and monopoly provider of the national rail network, including track, signalling and stations. Network Rail does not face normal commercial pressures from investors and lenders to improve efficiency as it is a not-for-dividend company without shareholders, financed by debt guaranteed by the Government. It is therefore the role of the Regulator to hold Network Rail to account for its performance and to incentivise it to become more efficient. The Regulator sets efficiency targets when it determines the limits on fees Network Rail can charge train operators for use of tracks, stations and depots. Sir Roy McNulty's recent review of the rail industry showed that the rail industry continued to fail to achieve effective value for money. The Committee states that the Regulator did not exert sufficient pressure on Network Rail to improve its efficiency, and that there is an absence of effective sanctions for under-performance in the system and should enforce a stronger link between performance and bonus payments to Network Rail's senior managers. The relationship between Network Rail, the Regulator and their advisors appears to the Committee to be too cosy. Network Rail should be more accountable for its use of public money, and more transparent in its operations. The Committee sets out 11 conclusions and recommendations.

Download or read book Reorganising central government bodies written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the Public Bodies Reform Programme the Government is reducing the number of its arm's length bodies from 904 to between 632 and 642 by the end of the current Spending Review period and will have a substantial and lasting impact. The Programme is intended to improve accountability for functions currently carried out at arm's length from Ministers. The Cabinet Office says it is on track to make £2.6 billion of administrative savings by 2015. However there are substantial reservations about the robustness of this claim. Key concerns are that: there is a risk departments are claiming savings which are actually cuts to services, when they should be including only genuine savings arising from administrative reorganisations; estimates of transition costs such as redundancy and pension costs are incomplete; the savings estimate does not fully take account of the ongoing costs to other parts of government of taking on functions being transferred from abolished bodies and some departments have wrongly included wider savings from bodies being retained, rather than just administrative savings from bodies being abolished or substantially reformed. The Cabinet Office has accepted that its savings estimate needs to be reassessed and has undertaken to 'rebase' it. Focus now needs to be on managing the Programme effectively. Departments have decided on the form of individual reorganisations themselves without clear direction from the centre, leading in some cases to inconsistent treatment of bodies with similar functions. Furthermore, departments may not be getting the best value for money from the sale or transfer of assets of bodies being abolished

Download or read book Department for Business Innovation and Skills written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-23 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency provide funding for further education students aged 19-plus. The Department for Education and the Young People's Learning Agency fund further education for 16-to-18-year-olds. These two departments provided £7.7 billion in funding to the sector during the 2010/11 academic year. The various government bodies that interact with the sector have different funding, qualification and assurance systems. Differences in the information required and collected create an unnecessary burden for training providers and divert money away from learners. To provide value for money, the systems need to be appropriate, efficient, avoid unnecessary duplication, and balance the protections they provide for public money with the costs of the bureaucracy they impose. No one body is currently accountable for reducing bureaucracy in the further education sector. Instead, the two Departments and the two funding agencies maintain separate responsibilities based on their funding streams. BIS has a stated policy objective of reducing bureaucracy imposed on further education providers but would not accept overall responsibility for bringing together efforts to reduce bureaucracy in the sector. Both BIS and DfE, and their funding agencies, have launched separate initiatives designed to simplify the requirements they place on providers. However BIS does not manage the simplification as a programme with a clear and consistent goal. While BIS has required the Agency to reduce its own administrative costs by 33%, there is no rational view on the amount by which they would like to reduce bureaucracy in providers nor do they accept that measurement of progress is necessary.

Download or read book Oversight of special education for young people aged 16 25 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost a third of young people with a Statement of special educational needs at the age of 16 are not in any form of education, employment or training two years later. The Government spent £640 million on special education for 16- to 25-year-olds in 2009-10, yet too many of these young people are falling through the gaps after they leave compulsory education, damaging their life chances and leaving a legacy of costs to the taxpayer. The system is extremely complex and difficult to navigate, with an array of different providers. Too many parents and young people are not given the information they need to make decisions about what is right for them. But three quarters of local authorities do not give parents any information at all about the respective performance of schools, FE colleges and specialist providers. The Department doesn't know how much money is actually spent on support. The huge variation between local authorities in funding per student suggests that a postcode lottery is at work. Students with higher-level needs are placed on the basis of statutory assessments of need; however, witnesses emphasised just how patchy the quality of these assessments can be. The opportunity for reform presented by the Department's recent Special Educational Needs Green Paper should be used to address our concerns It is right for local authorities to decide how to meet the needs of young people in their area - but local people must have access to clear information so that they can hold local authorities to account for how well they deliver

Download or read book Immigration written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report focuses on how well the UK Border Agency has achieved its objectives of an efficient and effective system for managing migration of workers from outside the European Economic Area. The Agency implemented a Points Based System in 2008, which introduced three main routes for people to come to the UK to work, replacing the previous 39 types of work visa. The System incorporates a route for students to come to the UK to study, which is not considered in this report. The System works by awarding applicants points based on, for example, their skills, qualifications and salary and requiring them to meet a minimum points threshold. The System is objective, transparent and flexible, as the points required can be modified to respond to changing needs in the UK workforce. However the Agency has not been doing enough to protect resident workers and ensure that migrant workers and sponsoring employers comply with immigration rules. A lack of exit controls makes this more difficult. The Agency estimates there may be 181,000 migrants still in the UK whose permission to remain has expired since December 2008. The Points Based System is rule-based and requires applicants to supply specific documentation to support their applications. Applicants, however, have needed more help to understand the rules and the Agency has introduced a policy of 'evidential flexibility', allowing caseworkers to request additional information in support of applications, to prevent applications being rejected for easily corrected mistakes; however, this is not applied consistently. The Committee welcomes plans to introduce an integrated casework system which should provide the information necessary for dealing with these issues, and expect to see improved performance once the new casework system is fully operational from 2013.

Download or read book DFID written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-03 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The DFiD's transfer programmes deliver cash, food and assets, such as livestock, directly to people living in poverty. Transfers can be used to tackle a range of issues, such as hunger and malnutrition, or access to health and education services, in a variety of contexts. In 2010-11 the Department spent £192 million on social protection programmes, which includes its transfer programmes. The evidence heard suggests transfer programmes are effective in targeting aid, and ensuring the money goes directly to the poorest and most vulnerable people. It is therefore surprising that the use of transfer programmes has not increased. The Department only plans to support transfer programmes in 17 of its 28 priority countries. It does not have an overall strategy for the use of transfers and its decisions on where to support transfer programmes look reactive. The decision as to whether or not to propose a transfer programme is taken by staff working in the country and it is not clear why there are extensive programmes in some countries and none in others. The Department does not collect data on all the costs of the transfer programmes it supports and the Department is therefore unable to say whether it is lifting more people out of poverty for every pound spent on transfers compared to other programmes. The Department's long-term objective is for the governments of recipient countries to take on the responsibility of owning and funding transfers as part of a sustainable social security system. However, the Department has not been clear about how individual programmes will be sustained