Search results

This chapter investigates the history, antecedents and drivers for the latest Fire and Rescue National Framework for England, published in 2018. It reviews the previous five national frameworks published since the first was introduced in 2004 and evaluates them against the model outline in Chapter 2. The authors suggest that that political expediency and speed of delivery have played a greater role in their development than improving services, increasing public safety and providing assurance to the public. It therefore highlights some key areas for improvement in both the national framework and in its implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to give the details of the development of the health libraries standards in England during the last decade; to identify and analyse the main features and innovations of the new accreditation framework published last year to assess the quality of that type of library, comparing it with the previous accreditation programme, and to present its first results.

This study is based on a comparative analysis between the two main health libraries’ accreditation programmes developed in England (the Helicon checklist and the LQAF framework), reviewing the goals they intend to achieve, the methodology they propose and the structure and content of their standards. This analysis is built on a wide literature review, including mostly grey resources: technical standards and reports, newsletters, minutes of meetings, and briefings

In the study, the main changes incorporated in the LQAF framework have been identified both at strategic, tactical and operational levels, delimiting the scope of the “360 degrees review” of the health libraries situation it aims. Besides, the main achievements since the LQAF appeared have been stated: the undertaken of the first National Baseline Assessments against the standards, whose results show the good fitness of English health libraries’ services quality, and the creation of the Innovation Reward. The near future, however, raises some uncertainties prompted by a new revision of the standards.

This is the first study about the new LQAF framework and it also provides the first comparison in the literature and a unique view of the main health libraries’ national accreditation programmes in England.

English governance has repeatedly had a tendency to veer between national, regional and local centres of power and influence. This has often led to profound disagreements, sometimes even open conflict. National policy guidance is usually helpful, if developed through consultation, to steer a clear, coherent direction for the system. But a narrow, excessively top‐down, mechanistic target‐driven approach can lead to a prevailing culture of ticking boxes at the expense of real patient priorities. Government ministers and civil servants, however, are often caught in a tension between being too dogmatic, or alternatively too flexible and giving responsibility to local agencies, whereupon people may complain about a ‘postcode lottery’ in services. Balancing perspectives and narratives in a coherent way for policy development and implementation and service improvement is a major challenge of leadership. The creation of the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) was designed to bring together the local, regional and the national in a form that would see policy and practice mutually developed and nurtured at all levels of governance.

The final chapter summarises the conclusions from chapters three to five. Fire and rescue services are currently having to contend with a data-poor operating environment (Chapter 3); an inadequate national framework, which has eschewed some of the lessons from previous frameworks (Chapter 4), and a new inspectorate and inspections regime that are at best, at an early stage of development (Chapter 5). Theresa May's vision of a new and revitalised performance management regime based on better data, a renewed purpose, with improved governance and accountability has been severely damaged and tarnished in the course of implementation. The authors suggest what the government needs to do to get back on track.

It is nearly eight years since the National Service Framework for Mental Health was published, setting ambitious 10‐year targets. This article draws on findings presented in a recent Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health report on progress to date. It concludes that although the framework confirmed the status of mental health as a health priority for the government, a likely shortfall in funding means that goals will not be met in full. The authors stress that this is not a criticism of policy; rather it reflects the ambitious nature of the government's mental health agenda.

The National Service Framework for Mental Health was published in late 1999, setting ambitious 10‐year targets. This article draws on findings presented in a recent Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health report on progress to date. It concludes that although the framework confirmed the status of mental health as a health priority for the government, a likely shortfall in funding means that goals will not be met in full. The authors stress that this is not a criticism of policy; rather it reflects the ambitious nature of the government's mental health agenda.

This paper reviews the work of the national dual diagnosis programme established in England in response to recommendations for improvements in the way that services treat people with mental health problems and substance misuse issues. National policy drivers are explained, as well as the aims and achievements of the programme to date.

The organisational and service delivery landscape of the emergency services in the UK has been rapidly changing and is facing further change in the foreseeable future. The purpose of this paper is to examine recent and ongoing organisational changes in the policy development, service delivery and regulatory landscape of the emergency services, in order to capture the overall picture and potential opportunities for improvement or further investigation.

This general review utilises the characteristics of the three domains of a national framework, namely, policy development, service delivery and public assurance, and uses these characteristics as lenses to examine the three main blue light emergency services of police, fire and ambulances.

What emerges in the organisational landscape and conceptual maps for the police and even more so for the Fire and Rescue Service, is the immaturity of many of the organisations in the policy and the public assurance domains while the service delivery organisations have remained relatively stable. In the relatively neglected ambulance services, we find the NHS’s recent Ambulance Response Programme has considerable potential to improve parts of all three domains.

The review is limited to the UK and primarily focussed on England.

The review identifies opportunities for improvement, potential improvement and further research.

Although the National Audit Office has attempted in the past to provide organisational landscape reviews of individual emergency services, this contemporary comparative review of all three services using a common model is unique. It provides considerable new insights for policy makers, service delivers and regulators.

The European Union‐supported Child and Adolescent Mental Health in an Enlarged Europe (CAMHEE) project aimed to provide an overview of the challenges, current practice and guidelines for developing effective mental health promotion and mental illness prevention policy and practice across Europe. As part of this work, an analysis was undertaken of the situation in England, making use of a bespoke data collection instrument and protocol.Our analysis suggests that there has been significant effort and investment in research, needs assessment, policy, human resource and service developments in CAMHS over the last 20 years, leading to a more detailed understanding and availability of services. Much of the emphasis has been on assessment and management of difficulties, however in recent years attention has begun to focus on mental health promotion. National standards and programmes such as Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills, 2004) have acted as catalysts for a number of national initiatives.