OBJECTIVE To describe the accuracy of ethnicity coding in contemporary National Health Service (NHS) hospital records compared with the 'gold standard' of self-reported ethnicity. DESIGN Secondary analysis of data from a cross-sectional survey (2011). SETTING All NHS hospitals in England providing cancer treatment. PARTICIPANTS 58 721 patients with cancer for whom ethnicity information (O...

The National Health Service (NHS) is the largest employer in the UK and since the late 1990s has gone through a period of unprecedented change in a wide range of areas from introduction of the NHS plan (Department of Health, 2000) designed to help the NHS meet the needs of patients and improve health outcomes; to the establishment of NHS Foundation Trusts in 2004 which have financial freedoms a...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recently updated its guidance on managing depression, adding specific guidance for depression in people with physical illness. The guidance should help improve the targeting of treatments, although implementation of the guidance on depression in physical illness is challenging in the National Health Service (NHS) context of separa...

Starting in 1997, the United Kingdom has introduced a series of interdependent legislative and regulatory reforms to improve access, treatment, and administration in the National Health Service (NHS)--attracting worldwide attention in the process. The NHS quality agenda involves a centrally coordinated program, defined quality targets, public reporting, enhanced incentives for stakeholders, imp...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This paper shows that overseas nurses (OSN) recruited to UK hospital trusts become deskilled in technical aspects of clinical practice. BACKGROUND Existing research reports that many newly recruited OSN are prevented from using technical skills acquired in training abroad, to the detriment of the National Health Service (NHS) and the concern of the nurses themselves. DES...

A B S T R AC T NHS Direct is a relatively new, nurse-based, 24-hour health advice line run as part of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The service delivers health advice remotely via the telephone. A central aspect of the service is the attempt to provide a standard level of health advice regardless of time, space or the background of the nurse. At the heart of this attempt is an innovat...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine and inform clinicians, managers, and budget allocators of the costs incurred to the British National Health Service (NHS), patient, and society when attending clinic-based physiotherapy compared with not attending clinic-based physiotherapy after arthroscopic partial meniscectomy surgery. METHODS The valuation principle used in this study ...

The measurement and management of performance in the public services has become increasingly prominent in the past twenty years, and progressively more so under the New Labour Government. In July 2000, the government devised a ten-year plan for the National Health Service (NHS) to radically reform and improve the performance and cost efficiency of the service. Concerns about high levels of publ...

Argues in favour of utilizing qualitative methods to assess the effectiveness of internal communications in the National Health Service (NHS), as a supplement to the more standard quantitative measures normally employed. Presents a case study from an NHS Trust, demonstrating the type of data which is generated. Compares these data to findings derived by quantitative methods. Argues that the qua...

BACKGROUND To determine financial and quality of life impact of patients calling the '0845' NHS Direct (NHS Direct) telephone helpline from the perspective of NHS service providers. METHODS Cost-minimisation of repeated cohort measures from a National Survey of NHS Direct's telephone service using telephone survey results. 1,001 people contacting NHS Direct's 0845 telephone service in 2009 wh...