Publications

From children's services to care for older people and end-of-life support, the community sector plays a key part in meeting the challenges facing our health and care system. This report presents findings from a small-scale study into how quality is managed in community services.

Specialists can provide support and training to help GPs and nurses diagnose and treat complex patients, write Ruth Robertson and Matthew Honeyman.

The LGA and ADASS invited senior figures from across the care and support sector to provide their perspective on some of the issues covered in their report, Adult social care funding: 2014 state of the nation. This is Richard Humphries' viewpoint.

We visited six services where consultants are delivering or facilitating care outside hospital. This report presents the findings from those visits as case studies and identifies some of the key characteristics and challenges to this way of working.

The predictable and understandable reluctance to talk about higher taxation before the election means that the funding challenge facing the NHS is not being adequately addressed.

With the general election coming at a pivotal time for health and social care, we set out our view of the key challenges and priorities for the next government.

The final report from the Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care in England.

As part of the Local Government Association's new campaign, Investing in our nation’s future: the first 100 days of the next government, Richard Humphries details what the Fund would like from the next government in its first 100 days in office.

Rachael Addicott considers how forward thinking GPs can be more engaged in leading the radical service redesign that is required in primary care.

Hard choices have to be faced to ensure our health and social care systems meet the challenges of the 21st century, says commission chair Kate Barker

The interim report from the independent Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care in England explains why England needs a single health and social care system, with a ring-fenced, singly commissioned budget, and more closely aligned entitlements.

The freeing up of pension pots announced in the Budget could have unintended negative consequences for the social care system. These need to be urgently addressed.

Richard Humphries looks at how social care can meet one of this generation's biggest policy challenges in an opinion article for Community Care.

Our report argues for a new approach that brings together funding for general practice with funding for many other services. This would entail new forms of commissioning, with GPs innovating in how care is delivered.

The pressure of a growing and ageing population is made all the more pressing by the financial challenges that the entire health system faces and are keenly felt within general practice.

The King’s Fund proposes a radically new approach to commissioning and funding general practice to tackle the pressure of rising demands when resources are declining.

Over the past few months there has been considerable debate and argument about plans by the NHS to collect and centrally collate details of individual patient records from general practice for the first time. Such fears are perhaps not just hypothetical given past examples of lost patient notes and what appear to be the misuse of sensitive patient information (even for the best of intentions).

Our new paper looks at the changes needed to realise the full potential of community services for transforming care. How should services change in order to fundamentally transform care and move it closer to home?

Commissioners should take the opportunity to redesign services while considering the needs of patients, says Helen Gilburt.

This paper examines the transformation of mental health services in England and the relevance to current policy. Drawing on workshops with those involved in the changes and a review of published literature, the paper explores the context and factors that enabled change to happen in mental health.