Generic NHS model for chronic care needed
The NHS should have an underlying generic model for the care of patients with chronic diseases, health policy experts say.
Richard Lewis, visiting fellow, and Jennifer Dixon, director, of health
policy think tank the King’s Fund, say that national service frameworks
are aimed at improving the care of NHS patients with specific diseases
or conditions. However, this approach does not deal adequately with people
with multiple conditions or whose conditions have not yet been covered
by an NSF.
Writing in the BMJ (2004;328:220), the authors say that the NHS should
look to the chronic care model currently being used by over 500 health
care organisations in the US. This model has six components: mobilising
community resources for patients, promoting high quality care through
better organisation, supporting self-management by patients, designing
clinical care systems to support patients, using decision support systems,
and using clinical information systems.
Changes in the NHS can already be detected, the authors say, including
the greater use of multidisciplinary teams. “The advent of nurse
specialists, general practitioners with special interests, and highly
skilled pharmacists looks set to reorient the management of people with
chronic disease, increasing the capacity of primary care and raising
the threshold for hospital referral.” |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal