issuu.com/SECQO twitter.com/SECSHAQO www.QualityObservatory.nhs.uk http://www.networks.nhs.uk/nhs-networks/sec-qo Volume 8 Issue 2 June 2014 Welcome to Knowledge Matters Inside This Issue : KSS AHSN ACS admissions 2 Cancer dashboard 9 News 14 Chi-square– what on earth?! 4 Getting web design right 10 Back page fun! 16 Working with the SCN 6 NHS Confed 2014 12 Better Care Fund 8 From the postbag 13 Another tip top, fun packed, super informative and all round marvellous edition of Knowledge Matters is here sports fans, so if you’re still crying into your lager at England’s early exit from the World Cup soothe yourself with the treats we have in store for you. Simon and I were delighted with the recent publication of the Ambulatory Care Sensitive Admissions Data report for the KSS AHSN recently; find out more about the report and its contents on pages 2 and 3. If you’ve ever wondered what keeps Adam with his head down all day, read his fascinating review of what analytics for the Strategic Clinical Networks looks like. Never a dull moment, as evidenced by Rebecca’s coverage of the cancer dashboard which she’s developed for the SCN. Aleks gives us a fascinating insight into those all important first steps in designing your website; trust me, she speaks from experience! Check out page 10 for details…. Speaking of non-stop fun, the 2014 NHS Confederation Conference has been and gone and we were pleased to have had a great stand; Amit gives us the highlights on page 12. There is also a review of the Better Care Fund and what it means for analytics, not to mention some highlights from our postbag. It looks like the QO is running right alongside this fantastic summer of sport! It only remains to say ‘come on Andy Grigor!’.
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When considering a new website, at some point of the process of getting one, most people find themselves talking to a firm or a person specialising in designing web pages… As getting the design of your website just right is important - this is the very conversation that is worth preparing for.
Just like building a new house, building a new website requires some careful thought, planning and designing. As it is your website, the role of designer is to implement your idea. For this reason, the aim of the conversation you are about to have, is to give the designer a sense of what you are really looking for in your website, what you want to accomplish with it and how you want to accomplish it.
So, what are the things to consider before you talk to your designer?
You need to contemplate your approach to all of the required components of your “online hub”. Build the function first and let the design follow.
First of all, it might be reasonable to establish a few essential objectives for the website. The key information would be:
what type of website it is going to be – showcase for your organisation, information page, blog,
shop etc.
who is the target audience – age, gender, socio-economic group
what’s the purpose of the site – to let others know what you do, to provide information, to get
someone to do something, to impress the visitor, to sell services or goods
what is the user experience that you want people to have – professional, trendy-hip, socially
engaged, animated etc.
Then, you need to consider your website or web page architecture:
Content Management System (CMS) – will your site need maintaining; who will manage and
maintain the site, and how; do you need CMS that is easy to use and keep up to date
data collection – do you need a database-driven website (important when planning to collect
information) or a “static” one – without database
site structure – try putting together a list of pages and sub-pages required for the website
“I’m really keen to get a website up to help support the new programme but really not sure where to start? Can you help me?”
It is also necessary to reflect upon the style of the web page:
content design – are you able to
supply text and photos for the website - knowing in advance how much text there is going to be on each page will help to decide on the amount of visual content needed to get the balance right
use of colour – what colours do you like or would rather avoid; what colour scheme would you want for your website – dark, light, bright, colourful…
logo/branding – will the website need to complement the existing branding and comply with related
guidelines
page layout – do you have any preferences regarding where different elements on the page
should go
Finally, to round up the whole process you might like to present examples of your favourite or least favourite websites. Try to find 3 websites similar to yours in terms of content and think what you like or dislike about them, then find an additional 3 sites which you like or dislike in terms of design, the look or the feel of them… or maybe with certain elements or aspects of them that are to your liking.
To sum up, the simple rules that might be worth keeping in mind while planning your website, which might help to get it just right, if followed, could be:
focus on user needs,
focus on quality content,
make it easy to navigate,
put the focus only on the essential elements of your website and get rid of the unnecessary
keep it simple and elegant
If, at some point in the future, you find yourself keen and ready to start an adventure with your own webpage and don’t know where to begin, need someone to give you advice or a hand with it – you could try the benefits of having the Quality Observatory Development Team working for you – it might be just the one you needed.
The latest Clinical Commissioning Group Out-comes Indicators were recently released by the Health & Social Care Information Centre. The indi-cators aim to provide information about the quality of health services commissioned and associated health outcomes. New indicators include:
One-year survival from all cancers
Breast feeding prevalence at 6-8 weeks
Access to psychological therapies services by people from black and minority ethnic groups
For more information see:
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB14298
Federation for the Health Informatics Profes-
sion
BCS The Chartered Institute for IT, the UK Coun-cil of Health Informatics Professionals (UKCHIP) and the Institute of Health Records and Information Management are working to create a new Federa-tion for the Health Informatics profession. Consul-tation on this proposal continues until October 2014. Three specific questions are being posed about the priorities for the Federation:
What is important to you?
Why is it important?
What are the best ways of involving you and
your professional colleagues to make sure we get this right?
For more information see: http://www.ukchip.org/?page_id=5404
Moving….
The QO is pleased to (very quietly on the back pages, because we’re not ones to tempt fate) an-nounce that we will shortly be on the move to our new premises– we’ll still be based in sunny Horley but our address and telephone numbers will change, hopefully by September. Make sure you keep in touch via e-mail and keep up with Knowledge Matters to see how the move is pro-gressing!
Sign up to Safety
Sign up to Safety is a new
national patient safety campaign that was announced in March by the Secretary of State for Health. It launched on 24 June 2014 with the mission to strengthen patient safety in the NHS and make it the safest healthcare system in the world.
The Secretary of State for Health set out the ambition of halving avoidable harm in the NHS over the next three years, and saving 6,000 lives as a result. This is supported by a campaign that aims to listen to patients, carers and staff, learn from what they say when things go wrong and take action to improve patient’s safety, helping to ensure patients get harm free care every time, everywhere.
The five Sign up to Safety pledges
1. Put safety first. Commit to reducing avoidable
harm in the NHS by half and make public the goals
and plans developed locally.
2. Continually learn. Make their organisations
more resilient to risks, by acting on the feedback
from patients and by constantly measuring and
monitoring how safe their services are.
3. Honesty. Be transparent with people about
their progress to tackle patient safety issues and
support staff to be candid with patients and their
families if something goes wrong.
4. Collaborate. Take a leading role in supporting
local collaborative learning, so that improvements
are made across all of the local services that
patients use.
5. Support. Help people understand why things
go wrong and how to put them right. Give staff the
The HSCIC is inviting feedback on its draft Code of Practice on Confidential Information2.
Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the HSCIC is required to publish a Code of Practice. Organisations that handle confidential information about the provision of health and adult social care in England are required to have regard to it, from GP practices and hospital trusts, to commissioners and research organisations.
The HSCIC released a Guide to Confidentiality in Health and Social Care in September 2013 which provided citizens and health and care staff with clear, accessible guidance on the handling of confidential information3.
The Code of Practice aims to complete the picture by providing good practice guidance to those responsible for setting and meeting organisational policies in this arena. It will help organisations to ensure that the right structures and procedures are in place to help all staff follow the confidentiality rules in the previously published guide.
The HSCIC is inviting a wide range of stakeholders to read the draft Code available at www.hscic.gov.uk/cop and provide their feedback by 18 August 2014.
Results of the feedback gathering will be published on our website and used to develop the final Code before its publication at the end of September 2014.
BCS ASSIST mentorship programme
Regular readers of Knowledge Matters will know how passionate we are here at the QO about professional development for folk in our line of work. In light of this, we are pleased to announce that BCS Assist (The Association for Informatics
Professionals in Health and Social Care) will be launching a mentoring programme. The key aims of this programme are to help and advise ASSIST members with their continued professional development by developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance their professional and personal growth. Mentoring will:
Help develop the next generation in health
informatics
Facilitate growth by sharing resources and
networks
Focus on the individual’s development as a
whole
Focus on professional development that may
be outside an individual’s area of work/knowledge
Enhance the skill set and knowledge about a
specific issue
Facilitate the sharing of expertise with others.
Help the individual learn more about other
areas within health informatics.
Help the individual gain from the mentor’s
expertise
Help the individual develop a sharper focus on
what is needed to grow professionally within health informatics
Help the individual learn specific skills and
knowledge that are relevant to personal goals
ASSIST will aim to help members find a mentor/trusted advisor. 9 members of the National Council will be able to provide one on one mentoring for an hour each month. Our National Council mentors have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with you. If you’re interested in getting mentored, please get in touch with the BCS
Knowledge matters is the newsletter of the NHS Quality Observatory, to discuss any items raised in this pub-lication, for further information or to be added to our distribution list, please contact us.
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