Press Releases

The aim is to produce community immunity through immunisation. Over the years we have struggled to hit WHO or Public Health targets – the New NHS Alliance believe that we must do better. Community Pharmacy has contributed a significant number of immunisations and joint working with General Practice is becoming more common. The flu letter for 2017 – 2018 has arrived and introduces the immunisation of reception and school age children for the first time.
Community Pharmacy wants to make a greater contribution and to help Public Health England achieve their 40-65% immunisation targets, but unfortunately seem to be excluded. Community Pharmacy has been excluded from the last program by not being able to access nationally purchased vaccine from the national stock for the immunisation of children.
Within the letter GPs are being asked to immunise 2 to 3 year old children. The immunisation of school age children will be delivered by school nurses and if any children miss their slot they will have to go to General Practice.
The NHS England Area Teams have the opportunity of introducing programs that are slightly different for their areas. The New NHS Alliance would like to suggest the following:

• Allow Community Pharmacy to be part of the service and allow access to vaccines from within the national purchasing scheme.
• To allow community pharmacies to deliver the service to school near their pharmacy.
• To allow community pharmacy to immunise children that have missed their opportunity within the school based program

Mark Robinson, NNHSA Executive member and special advisor – community pharmacy, said:
“We must remember that the aim is to produce community immunity and we must be disappointed that we continue to miss the national and international targets. We must try harder and do differently. It would seem an omission that community pharmacy does not have a clearer position in delivering the targets.”
He added: “We have shown that increasing the engagement between community pharmacy, children and their parents creates greater awareness of the services provided within the pharmacy – and has increased the number of minor ailment consultations in the pharmacy and reduced prescribing in General Practice. It is about time that we thought ‘one primary care’ and utilised community pharmacy more.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

• For enquiries,interviews or further comment, please contact: Judy Harris at judyharris15@aol.co.uk  or on 07717 691845
• New NHS Alliance mission is … ‘to infect the UK health system with wellness’. You can find more information here
• New NHS Alliance has a goal to make Health Creation and health creating practices a core part of the UK healthcare system alongside a greater focus on prevention. We believe that this is the best way to reduce health inequalities and deliver a sustainable health service. Click here for a short briefing paper on Health Creation.
• You can find coverage of our Health Creation Action Summit here 

 
 

The New NHS Alliance has supported the employment of pharmacists within General Practice through their document ‘Pharmacists and General Practice’ and within ‘Making time in General Practice’. We have also been great supporters of the commitment to pump prime pharmacists in General Practice and the work of NHS England in driving forward the successful pilot into full roll out. We have also seen the value and contribution that pharmacists in General Practice can make.
However, it is simply not enough. The 1,300 practices across London, who are currently surviving in a very challenging environment are allocated just 84 between then – and many are disappointed at this level and the lack of alternatives.  In Wandsworth community pharmacists have stepped in and supported General Practice on a sessional basis. Last year The NHS Alliance published their report ‘Supporting the development of community pharmacy’. The report offers 8 recommendations on ways to engage community pharmacists in managing the demand in General Practice. We know that several GP federations have approached Local Pharmaceutical Committees asking what more Community Pharmacy can do.
The New NHS Alliance believes that demand in General Practice is at a critical level. We know that working in ways that promote health creation can also help to reduce demand, and we would welcome urgent action to support community pharmacy to go further to manage demand and adopt health creating practices.
New NHS Alliance pharmacy lead, Mark Robinson, said:
“We have always said that Community Pharmacy is an under-utilised resource. It is time to sort this out and find ways of engaging and supporting community pharmacy to work closely with General Practice and with communities to manage demand.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

• For enquiries, interviews or further comment,  please contact: Judy Harris at judyharris15@aol.co.uk  or on 07717 691845
• New NHS Alliance mission is … ‘to infect the UK health system with wellness’. You can find more information here
• New NHS Alliance has a goal to make Health Creation and health creating practices a core part of the UK healthcare system alongside a greater focus on prevention. We believe that this is the best way to reduce health inequalities and deliver a sustainable health service. Click here for a short briefing paper on Health Creation.
• You can find coverage of our Health Creation Action Summit here

 
 
 

There is plenty to welcome in the announcement, including action to improve cancer care, extra money for children’s mental health and more NHS walk-in centres.
A realistic plan, but contradictions remain and people will still suffer

• We applaud Simon Stevens for being up front about the trade-offs that will have to be made. Non-the-less, dropping the waiting targets means people will have to wait longer in pain and people starting to die on waiting lists. This is a retrograde step for British citizens and one that is quite unnecessary – if the health service was properly funded.
• The glaring hole at the centre of this Delivery Plan is the lack of additional money.
• It’s not clear how getting hospitals to provide advice on smoking and drinking sits alongside the cuts to public health
• Encouraging more people to go into nursing is to be applauded but it is not clear how that sits with the Government’s decision to axe nursing bursaries.

STPs, CCGs, HWBs

• The government needs to come clean on how it sees the future of CCGs and Health and Wellbeing Boards? Will the rise of the place-based STP render CCGs and HWBs irrelevant?

Now we need rapid action on health creation

• We are very pleased that the Plan exhorts STPs to ‘mobilise collective action on “health creation” and service redesign’.
• However, the difference between aspiration and reality is a yawning gap!
• We now need to see another delivery plan setting out steps that NHS England, Public Health England, Department of Health and Health Education England intend to take to refocus the NHS and wider health system on ‘wellness’ and health creation, alongside an upgrade in prevention.

General practice

• New NHS Alliance wants to see health creating practice supported through the GP contract and other primary care contracts. For example, the Patient Participation Group Direct Enhanced Service could be reworked; a Direct/Local Enhanced Service could be introduced to harness the power of local people.
• All staff need to be trained in health coaching and actively promote self-management as part of a health creating curriculum, in order to decrease dependency on the system.
• Why do GP federations need to be formalised into hubs?
• There are questions on how, when there is already a shortage of GPs and they are being asked to provide a seven-day service, they will also be on hand to help in A&E units.

Pharmacy

• It’s about time we stopped using the rhetoric – that community pharmacy is a hugely underutilised resource – and start thinking of how pharmacist can be better used to manage demand, integrate with urgent and emergency care and deliver health creation through health and wellbeing hubs: http://www.nhsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Supporting-the-Development-of-Community-Pharmacy-Practice-within-Primary-Care-NEW-LOGO.pdf

Mental health

• While we are glad that mental health receives particular attention, we continue to see a purely service approach whereby access to dedicated services is prioritised. We would like recognition that Health Creation has a significant role to play in improving people’s mental state and that embedding health creating (salutogenic) practices across the health system can make a significant difference to the general state of people’s mental health.

Housing

• We’re surprised that the interface between medical institutions and people’s home environments – the place where patients spend the majority of their time – does not receive greater attention.
• If we are to shift to a home-based, community-based health system we need to start talking routinely about what’s happening in those homes and communities and which organisations might be best placed to support it.
• This Housingforhealth resource shows the breadth of what’s possible when housing and health work together.

Work and health

• We are interested in seeing more about the programmes to support healthy communities and support disabled people and those with long-term conditions to manage their own health, care and wellbeing.
• At a recent New NHS Alliance event, we concluded that strength-based (health creating) approaches – that focus on what people can do, rather than on their illness – can help to keep people active and in work despite health-limiting conditions.

 
 

The leaders of the NHS in England today (Friday 31 March) have set out a refreshed five year view and delivery plan.
Welcoming the renewed impetus this brings, the Chair of New NHS Alliance (NNHSA), Heather Henry – an independent nurse and former director of primary care, commented:
“It is very welcome that NHS England recognises the importance of developing the concept of and collective action for ‘Health Creation’ through the STPs – this marks a turning point in the way we can keep people well and support and encourage healthy lives and wellness within local communities. The Alliance has articulated ideas, approaches and actions which are needed to develop a ‘Health Creating NHS’ over this last year and is leading the way in developing practice in health creation including through our innovative ‘Active Alliance’ professional social movement for wellness. Communities must be seen as a core part of the solution, not an add-on.
NNHSA Chief Executive, Merron Simpson, added:
“Working together and building on people’s and communities’ strengths, the NHS, local authorities, housing organisations and community-based groups can build a joined up health and social care system; it will look different in different places if it is truly meeting the needs and character of different communities and we know this will improve health and help tackle health inequalities. But the various parts of the NHS need to allow this to happen; it doesn’t need to do more, it needs to do things differently and in partnership with local organisations and communities that have so much to offer”.   
New NHS Alliance has seen enough examples of truly health creating practice to be assured that all parts of the health system can play roles in creating conditions for health creation. So, GPs, community pharmacists and housing organisations can all ‘play host’ to community wellness, giving space for communities to find their own solutions whether that is through community-led walking groups, self help Facebook groups, gardening, ‘men’s shed’ type activities or other activities.
NNHSA Vice Chair, Dr Brian Fisher – a London GP, said:
We have reasons to be cautiously optimistic. It is good to see that the Delivery Plan has a particular focus on General Practice with more nurses, therapists and pharmacists to help provide the time and resources to implement the changes. However, it is difficult to square the optimism of the Plan with data showing that GP and nurse numbers are falling; that the resilience funding is not reaching the front line; that  monies that might have supported a progressive preventative and health creating future being used to shore up Trust deficits. We urge government and staff to reorient their efforts, resources and funding towards prevention and health creation, so that the whole system is defined by ‘wellness’ with health outcomes being the principal measure of success.”

Ends

 
Notes to editors:

• For enquiries, interviews or further comment,  please contact: Judy Harris at judyharris15@aol.co.uk  or on 07717 691845
• New NHS Alliance mission is … ‘to infect the UK health system with wellness’. You can find more information here
• New NHS Alliance has a goal to make Health Creation and health creating practices a core part of the UK healthcare system alongside a greater focus on prevention. We believe that this is the best way to reduce health inequalities and deliver a sustainable health service. Click here for a short briefing paper on Health Creation.
• We define ‘Health Creation’ as …“the enhancement in health and wellbeing that occurs when individuals and communities achieve a sense of purpose, hope, mastery and control over their own lives & immediate environment”.
• You can find coverage of our Health Creation Action Summit here

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The New NHS Alliance welcomes yesterday’s announcement of the new NHS guidelines and widespread review of prescriptions. We are glad that the government is responding to elements within our report – ‘Supporting the Development of Community Pharmacy Practice within Primary Care’ * – and we wait for further recommendations to be taken forward.
Mark Robinson, NNHSA Executive, Special Advisor – Medicines, Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation, comments:
“We welcome the discussion about which medicines should be funded by the NHS. We see this as a mechanism to reduce demand in General Practice and encourage people to make better use of the clinical skills of their community pharmacist – a much under-utilised  resource within primary care. We note that the list is just a draft and welcome the discussion on which medicines could be better managed through community pharmacy. It represents a sensible move when evidence based medicine is key and the NHS is experiencing increasing demand and severe financial restraint. This is just one element of our recommendations and we would welcome wider discussion on the report as a whole.”

ENDS

 
Notes to editors:

• For enquiries, please contact: Judy Harris at judyharris15@aol.co.uk or on 07717 691845
• ‘Supporting the Development of Community Pharmacy Practice within Primary Care’ –

http://www.nhsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Supporting-the-Development-of-Community-Pharmacy-Practice-within-Primary-Care-NEW-LOGO.pdf

• New NHS Alliance mission is … ‘to infect the UK health system with wellness’. You can find more information here
• New NHS Alliance has a goal to make Health Creation and health creating practices a core part of the UK healthcare system alongside a greater focus on prevention. We believe that this is the best way to reduce health inequalities and deliver a sustainable health service. Click here for a short briefing paper on Health Creation.
• You can find coverage of our Health Creation Action Summit here

The New NHS Alliance (NNHSA) view is that the recent report from the National Audit Office on health and social care integration has bought into sharp focus how important it is for organisations across the health and social care sectors to be working more closely and cohesively together for the benefit of local communities and patients. The NNHSA further contend that funding should flow in a different way – one which focuses on the benefits to patients and throughput rather than purely on cost savings to the NHS.
Chief Executive, Merron Simpson, says:
“We believe that the various approaches taken to date in integrating health and social care have been too ‘top down’ – and this has been compounded by a perception that these approaches require big systems change. What has been missing is a willingness to empower both frontline staff and communities to work differently and find solutions to their health issues. We need to understand that change will come through a series of small changes. In terms of measurement of progress, we believe there needs to be a shift in mindset, with much greater use of  measures that show health outcomes for.”
Chair Heather Henry, who works as a nurse in equal partnership with communities in Salford, comments:
“While it is clear that extra funding is urgently needed for social care, the NNHSA view is that positive outcomes can be achieved by better and closer working between NHS organisations, local authorities, housing, the community and voluntary sector, and communities themselves. The NHS needs to recognise and address the damaged health and social care relationship dynamic within our communities. This is especially needed in those areas where relationships with health professionals are shattered. This can be due to a variety of reasons, such as lack of funding for promised projects or policy changes, but whatever the cause, the reality is that the local community is left high and dry. And bitter. And wary.”
“Historically there has been a culture in the health and social care sector of ‘doing things to people’ rather than ‘with them’ – and this has been very apparent in the most disadvantaged areas. Trust has broken down in these communities – resulting in health and social care initiatives failing, and the most hard pressed residents being driven deeper in to despair. It’s time to change our approach, break down the credibility barriers, improve patient experience  and rebuild community trust.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• For enquiries, please contact: Judy Harris at judyharris15@aol.co.uk or on 07717 691845
• New NHS Alliance mission is …‘to infect the UK health system with wellness’. You can find more information here
• New NHS Alliance has a goal to make Health Creation and health creating practices a core part of the UK healthcare system alongside a greater focus on prevention. We believe that this is the best way to reduce health inequalities and deliver a sustainable health service. Click here for a short briefing paper on Health Creation.
• You can find coverage of our Health Creation Action Summit here
• We intend to publish a ‘Manifesto for the adoption of health creating practices’ in the spring of 2017
• Read our ‘Trojan Mouse’ success stories: http://www.nhsalliance.org/health-creation/
• Our work on The Lancet Manifesto for a healthy and health-creating society – To read this document please follow the link.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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