In this weeks’s edition…
Publications
Events
Opportunities
Delivering more sustainable services: Basque country shows it can be done
At our recent ‘practice worth spreading’ international seminar with the Health In Europe Centre we heard from two speakers who have played leading roles in the Basque ‘Chronicity’ strategy, which is attracting increasing attention from policy makers across the world.
Former Basque Health Minister, Dr Rafael Bengoa, and his implementation lead, Dr Josep Carbo, told us about the challenges the Basque Country faced in 2006 with an ageing population, increased demand for services, and decreasing funding. We also heard about the solutions that they identified including better integration of services, a focus on innovation, more proactive care, earlier interventions, and shift towards community services and primary care.
Impressive impact
So far, so familiar. Where this gets interesting is when we see the remarkable results:
· 7% cost savings for region’s health economy
· 52,000 acute hospitals stays reduction
· 48.9% increase in “hospital at home” stays.
The situation they faced was daunting:
· 80% of patient interactions were related to chronic diseases
· Chronic disease accounted for 77% of total health expenditure
· Health expenditure on pre-strategy trends was expected to double by 2020
· Care for patients with more than one chronic condition cost six times more than those with only one.
We can be inspired by this success. And I think we can also learn from how it was done.
Here are my top four lessons from the Basque Country’s approach to health service transformation:
1. The way they led was as important as the levers they pulled.
Central to their approach has been the culture of leadership they used and the idea of bottom-up change. It took time and effort to re-focus a system that was used to top-down, centralised, decision making and change to give the people delivering health services permission to have an opinion, find solutions and innovate. The single biggest element of their success was Dr Bengoa’s choice to trust local decision makers. I see this starting to happen across our region, and KSS AHSN are working more and more with our partners to support its spread.
2. Align incentives and reward outcomes
The Basques use levers which were designed to support their bottom-up leadership model and encourage innovation. The traditional model of paying for activity often locks us in to a top-down adversarial relationship between commissioners and provider. In the Basque model outcomes based payments helped open that relationship up, giving providers room to innovate.
3. Holistic transformation
One of the defining features of the Basque system change was that it encompassed all parts of the health and social care system. As the Five Year Forward View makes clear, we should be looking for solutions across health economies rather than seeking either national or individual organisation level answers.
4. Measure and be patient
Data quality was one of the key elements of success in the Basque example. We have seen from our Enhancing Quality and Enhanced Recovery programmes how important measurement can be. But don’t be knocked off course when change doesn’t happen immediately. Make sure you have indicators which can track marginal improvements along the way.
The prize is clear: in the Basque country they reduced total health care expenditure in 2014 by 7%, alongside sustained improvements in quality.
New model of patient-centred care prolongs independence and delivers 40% cost savings
Buurtzorg Nederland was founded in 2006 to create a new model of patient-centred care, focused on facilitating and maintaining independence for as long as possible. A report in 2010 documented savings of roughly 40% to the Dutch health care system resulting from its model.
On Wednesday 15 July Jos de Blok, the founder of Buurtzorg, will speak at our evening seminar about the organisation’s approach and how the results have been achieved.
We will look at how this model of patient-centred care help us improve the quality of care at the same time as achieving significantly better value for money.
This event is filling up fast. Click here to book your free place
Kind regards,
Guy Boersma
Managing Director
KSS AHSN
Publications
Cracking the innovation nut – diffusing innovation at pace and scale
Diffusion of innovation across the NHS at pace and scale remains a difficult nut to crack, yet one that must be urgently addressed if we are to collectively tackle the big challenges faced by the NHS over the coming years.
In ‘Cracking the innovation nut’ ,a briefing produced in partnership with the NHS Confederation, the AHSN Network sets out the combined experiences and learning of the 15 AHSNs over the last 24 months as they have addressed the challenge of diffusing innovation across the NHS.
Read more
Events
SEHTA AGM and annual conference: ‘Success for SMEs’, Leatherhead, 16 June 2015
The SEHTA annual conference aims to help SMEs with all the 4 Ps – Pounds, Policies, Proposition and Procurement. Rob Berry, Head of Innovation at KSS AHSN, will be talking about “Understanding the value proposition for the NHS”.
Click here for more information and to register
Ethical aspects of E-Health, Maidstone 18 June 2015
This free afternoon seminar hosted by the International Health Alliance has sessions on topics that include “Introducing technology to people with disabilities”, “Patient engagement with e-health” and “The digital eagles initiative”. It takes place at Swale 1, Sessions House, County Hall, Maidstone, from 13:00.
Please contact Janet Merza to book a place.
Paediatric Neurodisability Software Solutions, Gatwick, 18 June 2015
This event aims to bring academics, clinicians and business interested in this area together to focus on applications for therapy and diagnostics. There will be running roundtable workshops to pull together industry, academia and NHS clinicians to collaborate to improve the lives of children with neurodisability.
To register please click here .
Making an economic case for service redesign in the NHS, 1 July 2015, University of York
To achieve sustainable efficiency savings, the NHS needs to redesign the way in which services are provided. This training day provides an understanding of how the NHS tariff system works and will outline a simple modelling approach to examine the impact of service change from the provider and commissioner perspective.
For more information and to book please click here.
EU business opportunities for health ageing (Biz4Age) conference, 9 July 2015, Ashford
The theme for this open innovation demonstration will be “Co-creating solutions for independent elderly living in Kent: taking up the challenge of engaging SMEs and other ‘care and build’ stakeholders in regional collaborations”.
For more information or to register please contact Clare Ansett at SEHTA by 17 June.
KSS AHSN Care Home Collaborative, Gatwick, 30 September 2015
The agenda and papers for the event will be published on our website nearer the time.
For more information, or to register, please contact Ellie Wells.
KSS AHSN PEACE Collaborative, Gatwick, 20 October 2015
Proactive Elderly Person’s Advisory CarE collaborative event. The agenda and papers for the event will be published on our website nearer the time.
For more information, or to register, please contact Ellie Wells.
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Opportunities
SBRI briefing seminar: older people with multiple morbidities, London, 25 June 2015
A new round of Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competitions has been launched. Its overall focus is on “Older people with multiple morbidities”. Three sub-categories include: Faecal and urinary incontinence; Functional difficulties, and Falls.
This seminar will provide an understanding of:
- Clinical challenges
- Key requirements in this round
- SBRI process
It’s free to attend but you must register in advance.
To reserve your place please contact Sarah Wootton.
