Department of Health and Social Care
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Ensuring more Effective and Equitable Treatments for Patients
High Level Group on Clinical Effectiveness sets out recommendations to improve patient care
The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Professor Sir John Tooke today launched recommendations on how the NHS can ensure that more patients receive the most effective treatments.
By better harnessing the expertise of medical staff and relevant bodies the NHS will be able to enhance and incentivise more effective and efficient clinical care.
These recommendations come from the Report of the High Level Group on Clinical Effectiveness, which the CMO asked Professor Sir John Tooke to set up following on from his 2005 report Waste not Want Not.
Sir John and the group found that there is no single solution to address the issue of clinical effectiveness but that national co-ordination of activity and support for sharing of activity and information at local level are both vital.
The group has made recommendations for action and these have been accepted by the CMO on behalf of the Department of Health. They include:
- Alignment of national activities and support - We will take this forward through the new Health Innovation Council which Lord Darzi announced in his interim report on Our NHS, Our Future. NICE and NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement will be members of the Council and are already committed to working for better integration of workstreams and more joined up work.
- Promoting local ownership - The Health Innovation Council has a key role to play in providing leadership to encourage innovation at a local level as well as local clinical and management ownership.
- Ensuring clinical engagement - Sir John Tooke has already taken this up with a range of relevant bodies such as the Medical Schools Council and the GMC.
- Harnessing the capacities of academia -DH is calling for proposals to pilot Academic Health Centres for the Future, which will ensure better working partnerships between Universities and the NHS to better translate research into practice.
- The research agenda - Professor Martin Eccles will chair a small expert group to define the research agenda and inform the NHS R&D Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO)'s commissioning considerations.
Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer said:
"Improving the outcomes for patients and maximising the use of NHS resources is a key issue. That is why I focused in my 2005 annual report on the issue of variation in clinical practice.
"I am very grateful to Professor Sir John Tooke and his colleagues for their report and recommendations which responds to the issues I raised in my Annual Report. These show how complex this issue is and suggest a practical and sensible approach to addressing it.
"I am pleased to accept the recommendations and that we will be able to take this agenda forward through the next phase of the NHS Next Stage Review, being led by Lord Darzi, and the Academic Health Centres of the Future. Clinical staff want to do the best for patients and we will provide the leadership and support they need to improve quality and outcomes for patients."
Professor Sir John Tooke said:
"Access to clinically effective care is the cornerstone of a high quality NHS. I was therefore delighted to be invited to chair the High Level Group on Clinical Effectiveness to explore ways in which more effective and efficient healthcare could be achieved for the benefit of patients. We discovered a plethora of valuable activity but also the need for greater co-ordination and alignment as well as local clinical engagement. The educational demands are profound and it is crucial that the measures employed to promote clinical effectiveness are as grounded in evidence as treatments themselves.
"I am very pleased that Sir Liam has accepted our recommendations and that the Department of Health is committed to taking forward the co-ordinating function through the new Health Innovation Council. I am also delighted that our recommendation for a new model of community-wide 'academic health centres' to drive evidence into practice has been accepted.
"I am very grateful to the experts on the Group and the many professional bodies and other stakeholders that contributed to this important agenda."
"Improving the quality of care, including its effectiveness, is the central aim of the NHS Next Stage Review, being led by Lord Darzi. The findings and recommendations in this report will now feed into the next phase of the Review which will culminate in the publication of the Final Report in June 2008.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
1. A full copy of the report is available at: http://www.dh.gsi.gov.uk
2. The Department of Health is announcing a call for proposals to pilot 'National Institute for Health Research Academic Health Centres of the Future'. These will bring together academia and the NHS across the health community covered by the Centre. These will develop innovative models for conducting research and also translating research into practice and improving outcomes for patients. Funding of up to £50 million will be available for the pilot phase with each Centre getting between £5 -10 million over the funding period.
[ENDS]
