Blog

As The King’s Fund launches its new animation explaining how the health and care system works, Sarah Murphy explains how people and communities, at the heart of the health and care system, are also at the heart of our animation.

Loreen Chikwira explores how better listening, collaborative working with minority ethnic women and better support for link workers can improve how social prescribing supports migrant women.

Now the Health and Care Act has been passed, Richard Murray reflects on the negotiations that went down to the wire, what didn’t make it and what’s needed to ensure the reforms are successful.

Oliver Standing, Director of Collective Voice, and colleagues from the Alliance Group, explore the opportunities offered by England’s new drugs strategy, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

Richard Murray has a sense of déjà vu as he writes his 2022 New Year blog. Covid-19 will bring challenges to implementing the many changes in store for the health and care system this year, but the biggest challenge is tackling the workforce shortage – a challenge the government has so far refused to face.

Partnership working can be transformative – if it works well. Here we share two techniques, observed as part of the Healthy Communities Together programme, that can help in forming healthy partnerships.

What changes will the Health and Care Bill bring to financial planning in the NHS? Siva Anandaciva looks at where and how decisions about money in the NHS will be made.

Angela Fell, Director of Northern Heart and Soul in Wigan, outlines why we should move beyond person-centred services to a community-centred approach in order to transform people's health and wellbeing.

How could patients, service users and the wider public benefit from the government’s proposed health reforms? Chris Naylor explains why there needs to be a clearer answer to that question.

Nicholas Timmins outlines why greater ministerial powers over the day-to-day running of the NHS proposed in the Health and Care Bill might not work for the service or for ministers.

With the upcoming health and care reforms a key focus of the Queen’s Speech, Sally Warren looks back on ‘the pause’ in the 2011 Health and Social Care Bill, and asks what lessons are there for the forthcoming Health and Care Bill?

Data, funding and workforce – if the government wants its proposed reforms to the MHA to create change these system-wide enablers are as important as individual changes to legislation. Helen Gilburt consider the issues.

As we reach the one-year anniversary of the start of lockdown in the United Kingdom, Richard Murray outlines how a whole-system response will best support staff and patients and help to tackle inequalities.

Helen Gilburt shares her research into how mental health and social care professionals make decisions around whether to detain people with mental disorders under the Mental Health Act or the Mental Capacity Act – Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Her research uncovered a range of understandings and misunderstandings which impact on practice.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s latest legislative proposals show a desire to fast forward the integration agenda, but without further detail it’s hard to reach a view. Richard Murray reflects on the proposals.

How can NHS services use their facilities to better support social prescribing? Ben Collins highlights what’s needed to make NHS sites more welcoming spaces for individuals and communities.

Digital tools and services are increasingly being used in health and care, but what happens to all the data that is collected, who should have access to it and who decides? Pritesh Mistry outlines the value of trust and transparency in these complex agreements

Providing joined-up services that address people’s physical and mental health needs has long been a challenge. Jihad Malasi asks whether primary care networks could be the answer to providing holistic primary care mental health services.

Helen Gilburt reflects on the experiences of staff and people with mental health problems during the first months of Covid-19 and urges mental health services to learn from those experiences to plan for the future.

The Covid-19 outbreak has exposed gaps in psychosocial support for health care workers. Mary Docherty, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust London, considers the action needed to address those gaps and meet the needs of the workforce in the future.