13 February 2014

Achieving Commissioning Excellence Develops Tool to Help Commissioners and Providers Bring ‘Triple Value’ to Heart Failure Services

Achieving Commissioning Excellence, a partnership between NHS Alliance and Novartis, has developed a tool which looks at what commissioners and providers can do to improve heart failure services in their area, and how they can achieve ‘triple value’ for patients, delivering better outcomes, better patient experience and better productivity.

The report recommends a number of areas that commissioners need to think about when redesigning the care pathway, including the current situation in their locality, the role of generalists and specialists and patient handover. It also emphasises that real value can only come from joined up working across the health service, and by sharing care between the patient, the GP and the hospital.

Dr Donal Hynes, GP in Somerset, and vice chair of the NHS Alliance said: “This is what commissioners have been looking for – a tool that improves outcomes for patients rather than just hits process targets.  The realisation of clinical commissioning starts to demonstrate its real value to local patients.”

Jennifer Gow, heart failure specialist nurse, Central Manchester University Hospitals Foundation Trust, said: “Heart failure is serious problem and we need to make sure that we deliver the highest quality service possible. We are doing better – now I see patients with a heart failure diagnosis on echocardiogram who are managed better and have never decompensated – but we still need to do more.”

Michael Sobanja, policy director, NHS Alliance, and chair, Achieving Commissioning Excellence said: “Too often the default financial system gets in the way of optimising care. Together we can set it aside and replace it with something that works locally.”

Notes

The initial meeting took place on November 7, 2013.

Achieving Commissioning Excellence was a partnership between NHS Alliance and Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd between 2011-2013 which aimed to support the development of NHS clinically-led commissioning of healthcare services.  This publication has been funded by Novartis, but all editorial content has been created by NHS Alliance and invited experts.

For further information please contact:

Rebecca Riffel, rebecca.riffel@salixconsulting.com 07725 555030