Major Innovation Developments in NHS - Essay Example

? Number] Major Innovative Developments in NHS The National Health Service (NHS) donates the healthcare system of United Kingdom that has major impact upon the healthcare conditions and situation of the country (Walshe, 2002, p970). Innovations have been regarded as important and continual activity at NHS and it has been demonstrated by NHS that innovation is about the successful implementation of the ideas that eventually works to create value for the people (Patel, 2012, p1). NHS has been recognized world class with respect to the innovation of new technologies, processes and devices that are adopted by NHS from time to time with the purpose of providing better healthcare facilities to the patients. The on-going NHS reforms are also intended to promote the innovative development process and to make their benefits available to the people at local levels as well (Glasper, 2010, p281). The healthcare service in England is closely linked with the research and development system supporting NHS due to which innovative developments have become an integral and on-going process within NHS (Wickramasinghe et al, 2009, p95). There is great level of awareness among the NHS people regarding the imperative need of introducing innovations within the system on timely basis to make the service effective and adequate for the people (Orme et al, 2007, p43). There are different networks also created within NHS to diffuse the innovative technologies within the NHS services and healthcare delivery. These formal and informal networks work at local and individual champions and monitor the organizational response to the changes within external policy. They have creation regional innovative hubs to spread the healthcare related services and information at local levels and eventually people are enabled to access the NHS services and information through different advanced and convenient means (Selmi and Barratt, 2010, p1970). Innovation development process is an integral part of NHS for while the funding has been attained through commercial, public and charitable sectors (Connolly, 1990, p1098). According to an estimate there are almost ?250 million spent upon the health and medical research in UK pharmaceutical industry that shows the focus on NHS upon research and development work. The charitable sector gives away ?415 million per year to finance the innovation development process whereas the government also funds the innovative development work through the science budgets of different departments (Pincock, 2004, p854). As a result of continual focus upon research and development work at NHS, there have been numerous innovative developments occurred with NHS from time to time (Robinson, 2002, p1344). There innovative developments have drawn great impact upon the people at national as well as local level. Some of the major innovative developments within NHS include the creation of NHS direct, NHS choice, NHS local and setting up of different innovative programs to improve the healthcare at different levels (Appleby, 2009, p4698). The essay discusses three major innovative developments within NHS that have great impact upon the patient care at local level. The essay discusses these developments in reference to the east London to illustrate the implications of these initiative and developments at the local level (Department of Health, 2003a, p1). NHS Choices innovation and development Programme NHS has introduced the Innovative and Development program in order to making better use of the digital technology for spreading NHS information nationwide. This is an important step because through this measure the NHS information would be easily accessed at the local level and people would become to learn about their healthcare issue from their own places. The program was initiated in collaboration with the third sector partner through which it has been attempted to derive traffic into the local services. MHS is intended to be more efficient and cost effective by improving the access to health and social care information through the digital technology (Hewison, 2004, p32). Through this program NHS has become able to identify the needs of the people and provide the services accordingly. The health literary among the risk groups has also bee improved through this program. In addition to these different groups of people are made aware of different health related issues and problem through digital technology. For instance, the program for sexual health in the Humber area is meant to provide sexual health information and services to the young people through mobile and Bluetooth technology. The program has been initiated in the Humber region in collaboration with eh local primary care trust (NHS Modernisation Board, 2002, p87). NHS has also created some platforms to organize and disseminate the information and services about healthcare by making effective use of the digital technology (Hewison, 2004, p32). In this regard NHS Choices Mobile has been started as a joint service of NHS Choices and UK Government. In this program, the people are provided with the SMS service to find out the local NHS services like hospitals, clinician and dentists etc. neat to their place. Moreover, the people could also change their alcohol intake, weight and cost of smoking through this SMS service (Poole, 2000, p121). Health Kiosks are also established as the digital units for medical setting. Through the health kiosks the target audiences are reached and provided with the enticing and creative content about particular health issues common among the particular group of people (Great Britain National Audit Office, 2005, p65). The health assessment kiosks are placed in the public setting for the general use and they also perform suite of test of different health related issues like blood pressure, body mass index BMI and body fat contents by inquiring lifestyle patterns of the people. NHS Local NHS Local is one of the major programs of NHS that is mainly directed to implement the innovative development took place within NHS at local level. The NHS Local has created several plans and tool for the dissemination of the NHS services at the local area due to which the NHS innovations are used for patient care across the country. NHS local has created an online tool with the objective of supporting the people with long term conditions (LTC) (Harrison and Steven, 2002, p16). Through this tool, the people with LTC have become able to reflect their condition and understand their problems in better what. Through this reflection, it has become possible to immediately make action plans to improve their health conditions. There is special attention given to LTC because it has been found that this problem in on rise among the population and hence, NHS has decided to make use of innovative developments for better cure of this health issue being faced by the nation (Davies, 2007, p36). In order to enable people of LTC for doing their better care and treatment, NHS local is working with NHS Midlands. They have developed a structured online personalized care planning PCP tool in order to provide support to the people with LCT so that they could better understand their health conditions and could also manage their health by taking the self-care approach demonstrated to them through the online program (Hewison, 2004, p32). This tool has been development for the people suffering from LTC at all the stages. The information about the health condition of people and the record of their treatment and care is also maintained through this tool so that their healthcare could be conducted in more effective manner (Department of Health, 2003a, p1). With the help of this tool, NHS has attempted to spread awareness about the health problems and care at the local level so that the people could understand their problems and could also take necessary and immediate actions to improve their conditions. The PCP has been sought as the blueprint of the future healthcare services and delivery making best possible use of the advanced technology and innovations (Nicholas, 2007, p32). The local champions are also important tool developed by NHS to diffuse innovation within NHS services especially when the clinicians want to address specific health issue or problem of the community within their working environment (Davies, 2007, p36). The local champions allow the clinicians to convey information about the particular health problem to their people at local level. For instance, the Safe House concept was developed by a local mental health service user group to support people in crisis. They take information from the clinicians and healthcare professionals and transmit it to the people at local level to inform them and make them able to take good care of them. This idea was later funded and developed as three year pilot project. In addition to these, The Local Authority Peer is an important initiative of NHS to foster innovative development across the country. The NHS local authority Peers work to review the local governments so that their performances could be improved (Department of Health, 2003b, p3). NHS Direct NHS has also introduced NHS direct to deliver better healthcare services to the people through the adaptation of advanced developments. NHS direct give people cheaper and extensive access to the healthcare services across UK. It also releases some pressure from the Accident and Emergency services of the hospitals and GPs because the people provided with the healthcare services in more effective and innovative manner. NHS direct is a 24 hours telephone service led by the nurses through which people could get distance based information and became able to make well informed decision about their health. Through this innovative tool, NHS has become able to reach the public whereas the people are also enabled to get accessed to healthcare information (Wickramasinghe et al, 2009, p95). The introduction of NHS direct is part of the policy of the government to modernize NHS. It is also intended to improve the satisfaction of the customers and safety of the patients. Through this innovative development, the patients are empowered to make better decisions and informed choices regarding their healthcare and treatment (Davies, 2007, p36). This service is not only beneficial for the patients but in wider sense it works to expand the working boundaries of NHS at local level. The people across of the country could feel NHS near to them as they have different options in front of them to stay connected with NHS and NHS direct is one of the instant and convenient tools for doing this (Davies, 2007, p36). An important innovation within NHS is the creation of the Primary Care Trusts PCTs that take funds from the government and work to improve the service provision and healthcare to the people across the country. The creation of PTCs has allowed several new collaborations and way of working that were not available earlier (Wickramasinghe et al, 2009, p95). NHS also encouraged the bodies to participate in different schemes and programs led by the government and to work in collaboration with different national and international healthcare agencies and professionals to get better insight to certain healthcare issues and to foster the process of innovative developments within the healthcare industry (Nicholas, 2007, p32). Importance of Innovative Developments and impact upon healthcare in East London The innovative developments introduced from time to time by NHS have great impact upon the overall quality and efficiency of healthcare in UK. These innovations have not only facilitated the patients but have also allows NHS to reach people across the country and expand its working at national and local levels. These innovative developments have drawn special and much important impact upon the local level healthcare because these tools have helped people and NHS to interact in more effective manner in no time and great convenience (Hanlon et al, 2003, p1). The innovative programs like NHS direct and NHS local have allowed increased participation of the patients in the healthcare process. Different areas in East London like Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham are also strongly affected from these innovations because the local champions tool has stimulated the local clinicians and healthcare groups to actively participate in the healthcare process and eventually people are getting more concentrated and direct access to the healthcare facilities that were not available to them earlier (Mark and Shepherd, 2001, p2). The internet based programs like PCP and Health Kiosks have made healthcare information reachable for everyone especially the young generation can get hold of authentic information and guidance from NHS on various topics regardless of their location. It has increased awareness about sexual education among the youth. The mobile SMS and Bluetooth service is another good option for the people that do not frequently use internet. Moreover, the telephone service NHS direct provides detailed information to the people about their health issues (Munro et al, 2001, p1). In this way, it could be said that the innovative developments have allowed NHS to go deep inside the roots of UK. At present, NHS not only stands at national healthcare service but it also acts as local healthcare service and information provider because people at all the regions, cities and areas have many options in front of them to keep connected with NHS and attain the required amount of information, guidance and services from NHS. Thus, innovative developments have expanded NHS boundaries across the nation and people in even little areas of East London are able to avail NHS facilities to improve their health quality. Work Cited Appleby, J. (2009). Capping earnings from private patients in NHS foundation trusts. British Medical Journal, 12 (33): pb4698 Connolly, C K. (1990). NHS trusts. BMJ British Medical Journal, 301(6760) p1098 Davies, P. (2007). The NHS in the UK 2007/08. London: The NHS Confederation Department of Health (2003a). The NHS Improvement Plan – Putting People at the Heart of Public Services, NHS. Department of Health (2003b). 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