Volume 8 Issue 4 October 2014 Welcome to Knowledge Matters This year is the 75th anniversary of the film of The Wizard of Oz*, so this issue we’re going to follow the yellow brick road to find out all about the UK Improvement Alliance, the NHS Safety Thermometer event, and population segmentation. There is however a parallel to be made between Dorothy’s travelling companions and the NHS! The lion, the tin man, and the scarecrow wanted three things from the wizard: courage, heart, and brains. These three things, I would suggest, are what any NHS employee needs to make the system run smoothly and efficiently. Yeah—I know that sounds obvious, but how many ideas have we all seen around the system, that are, seemingly ill-thought out, or ones that seem intelligent but actually don’t take caring for the patient into account, or those ones that are just too timid and don’t go far enough because people are afraid of the consequences. I’ve been in the NHS long enough to have seen all kinds of this stuff floating around. It’s difficult to get the balance right. Cold hard facts can tell you that the sensible thing to do for the system is to shut a hospital, but then that’s perceived as heartless to the patients using that hospital, and so a muddled compromise is made that, in the end, increases inefficiency and patient dissatisfaction. So I can only hope that we all use these three qualities in a balanced and thoughtful way, because if the NHS is to thrive through change this is the best way forward. And with that I’ll click my heels and say “There’s no place like home6” *It’s also the 75th anniversary of Batman this year, and in hindsight if I’d thought of that sooner I’d have been photoshopped into a cooler (although probably no less camp) picture!
Inside This Issue : Population segmentation using adjusted clinical groups
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National Cancer Experience Patient Survey
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News
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Questionnaire design in health research
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Has the Friends and Family Test made a difference?
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Back Page
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Safety in Numbers: NHS Safety Thermometer Event
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UK Improvement Alliance Launch
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twitter.com/SECSHAQO issuu.com/SECQO http://www.networks.nhs.uk/nhs-networks/sec-qo www.QualityObservatory.nhs.uk