Policy Forum is a collaboration between Pfizer and the New Statesman
Nurturing innovation in the NHS
18 January 2009
In 1948, when the National Health Service was born, its structures were designed to provide reliable and comprehensive medical treatment for everyone, dealing with health emergencies and one-off illness. Its remit was to deliver sound, adequate health care.
Sixty years on, in 2008, the report of Lord Darzi’s NHS review, High-Quality Care for All, spoke of driving the NHS towards completely reinventing itself. In this vision, decisions are made to improve quality, rather than minimise cost. It foresees models of patient-centred care that engage individuals in the long-term management of their own health, with clinicians on hand to advise, guide and support their choices.
The impact of these changes is expected to be profound, with patients and families diagnosing, monitoring and treating their own conditions, resulting in changes to the usual relationship between health professional and patient, and to the organisational structures of the NHS. It will be hugely different from the NHS of six decades ago, and it will be possible only if we develop new ways of working, new attitudes, new treatments – if we embrace innovation.
Towards a blueprint for a healthily informed patient
27 July 2009
Over the past 15 years, advances in technology have meant that more information has been available more widely to many more people than ever before. In terms of our own health, this availability of information has made it possible for patients to find out a vast amount of information on all types of conditions and their diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.
Our appetite for this information stems from our desire to have control over our bodies and our lives and the fear that we experience, particularly when we are given a diagnosis that has serious implications for our health.
Back to work
02 March 2009
Work is good for you. It meets psychosocial needs, provides a framework for identity and social status, reduces poverty, and promotes rehabilitation and health.
With more than 2.6 million people in the UK dependent on incapacity benefits, the government is looking for ways to help people return to the workplace. The development of the new Employment and Support Allowance that is replacing Incapacity Benefit and Income Support focuses on what people can do, rather than on what they can’t.
The Future of the NHS
09 February 2009
Sixty years ago, few could have predicted that the National Health Service would look as it does now. Indeed, its founders even predicted falling demand for its services, as major infections were brought under control.
Predicting what the NHS will start to look like over the next 60 years may be even more difficult as the pace of change will be furious and could lead us in directions that we have not even countenanced.
This supplement, sponsored jointly by the New Statesman and Pfizer, invited participants to offer their own expectations for the future direction of health services. What those who have participated in this project seem to agree on is that technology will have a radical effect on the landscape, that patients will be at the centre of their own healthcare and that services will be delivered more locally, even in patients’ own homes.
From the supplement . . .
The Future of the NHS podcast
Representatives from the three main political parties discuss the next 60 years of the NHS in our special Question Time event chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby
The great survivor: another 60 years
Liam Donaldson looks to the horizon and considers some of the issues that may arise for health services in the decades to come
A personal history of the NHS
Kenneth Calman looks back over the past 60 years describing the impact that the NHS has had on him
Future NHS is a service commitment, not an organisation
Tackle funding, organisation and priorities head on
Old battle lines between public and private are now blurred
Understanding the changing face of primary care
03 November 2008
The traditional roles of general practitioners and pharmacists in the UK are changing. Our round table participants consider how we can balance the need for a simple and easy-to-understand system with the need to be flexible and complex enough to deal with the needs of all patients.
From the supplement . . .
Understanding the changing face of primary care: Introduction
Will more choice help us through the maze?
Patients will want to take the path that leads them to the healthcare that they want, at a time when they want it
Biotech Britain: Realising the impossible
12 May 2008
Biotechnology is the use of biological systems and living organisms, or their derivatives, to make or modify products or processes. While its use is commonly understood to refer to genetic engineering, the use of biotechnology currently has four main fields of application: medicine and healthcare, agriculture and food production, industrial (for example, enzymes as catalysts) and the environment. This round-table discussion, sponsored jointly by the New Statesman and Pfizer, invited participants to examine the state of the biotechnology industry in this country. Participants talk about their experiences of working as scientists and business managers. They attempt to identify the financial conditions and the sort of management that we need to build on the status that the industry has achieved in Europe, so that it can compete worldwide.
From the supplement . . .
Biotech Britain: Introduction
Using our experience of failure to drive forward miracles
Paul Rodgers examines the strengths and weaknesses of biotechnology in Britain
World-class strategy for cancer
07 January 2008
Participants in this recent Policy Forum discussion, a collaboration between the New Statesman and Pfizer, discussed the progress that may be expected on the newly released Cancer Reform Strategy and that of its predecessor, the 2000 Cancer Plan. Between the publication of these two documents, many new drug therapies became available – expensive therapies that have led to disparities between primary care trusts about patients’ eligibility for them. The discussion centred on the issues of what we need to do on prevention, early diagnosis, better treatment, living with and beyond cancer, and the whole new survivorship agenda.
From the supplement . . .
World-class strategy for cancer: Introduction
Achieving a world-class cancer service in the UK
Vivienne Parry takes us through the recent history of cancer strategies in the NHS and the effects of a rapidly ageing population
Healthcare and the third sector
16 July 2007
On 28 June, the Pfizer UK Foundation held its inaugural symposium event to celebrate the success of the 110 community-based health inequality projects it has supported. Over 130 delegates attended, representing a broad range of charities, community groups and patient organisations, to hear inspiring stories of how these projects have provided much-needed support to the UK’s most deprived communities. Delegates at the symposium were also given the opportunity to listen and contribute to the New Statesmanand Pfizer Policy Forum round table debate on the role of the voluntary sector in healthcare, an edited transcript of which is in this report, following a personal view from Cliff Prior, chief executive of UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs. The Pfizer UK Foundation was established in 2005 to address health inequalities across the UK, arising from social, economic, cultural and demographic factors. It supports community-based projects that tackle health inequalities in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales that fall outside core NHS statutory funding. Grants are allocated to projects that provide tailored, innovative, modest and local solutions to needs defined by local healthcare and social care experts, community groups and charities. Since 2005, the Pfizer UK Foundation has donated over £2.6m in grants to 110 community projects addressing health inequalities, experienced by approximately 240,000 people across the UK. For more information, please visit www.pfizer.co.uk under the community section or call 01737 330713.
Medical Progress
11 June 2007
Over the next decade, ongoing medical progress will change what it is possible for healthcare to achieve, with new medical innovations continuing to help prolong healthy life, as well as changing how treatment is given.
Addiction
18 May 2007
Addictive behaviour seems to be inextricably linked with reward. The behaviour that the addicted individual performs has to reward them and there need to be plenty of opportunities to perform it too. However, this also describes many of the behaviours that human beings do every day – eating, working and sleeping, for example. This New Statesman/Pfizer supplement explores what we are currently prepared to do to address the issues of addiction – and what we may need to accept in the future if we are to make any further impact on it.
