We are delighted to welcome Rebecca Hughes to the PRSB team as our new Head of Partnerships, who describes why she joined PRSB, the importance of the Standards Partnership Scheme and gives some updates on the scheme’s recent activity.
The People Network was established earlier this year to ensure PRSB promotes the views of those with lived experience of using services and records. The group is made up of people who have previously contributed to developing our standards or those who have an interest in this work, and this month, we held a People Network event to get feedback on our consultations and on how we can improve our consultation processes.
PRSB’s fourth partner event centred around our Personalised Care and Support Plan (PCSP) standard and we were pleased to welcome a range of partner representatives and Advisory Board members to the discussion. The group discussed the standard’s importance in furthering personalised care, the content of the standard and heard about implementing the standard from a system supplier.
Roundtable agrees that writing letters directly to people is a priority after the Paterson Inquiry
In December 2017 the government commissioned an inquiry to investigate Ian Paterson’s medical malpractice and to make recommendations to improve patient safety. The Inquiry published its report in February 2020 and put forward recommendations to government and others. Last March the government committed to responding to the recommendations before the end of the year.
A team in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is developing recommendations and PRSB are advising on them. On 6th October, DHSC held a roundtable to gather views from patient groups and experts, including the PRSB, and key stakeholders across the system.Our Chair, Professor Maureen Baker, contributed to a roundtable earlier this month to gather views from patient groups and experts on the importance of clinicians writing directly to people as standard practice in both the NHS and private practice. The rationale is that by writing directly to people, outlining their condition and treatment in simple language, and copying this letter to the person’s GP, it will help people to have greater control over their own information and the ability to spot issues with their treatment before problems occur.
The PRSB has published guidance on standards for outpatient letters which reiterates this view, and the NHS Standard Contract states outpatient letters should use the PRSB template to ensure letters are written to people in an understandable way. You can read our guidance here
Advisory board update
Great enthusiasm for the latest Advisory Board topics was expressed by members who attended. PRSB was delighted to welcome Ian Binns from NHS Digital's Data Liaison Service, who presented his team's work on reducing the burden of data collection for NHS providers, with the long-term aim of reducing the burden of collecting data nationally to zero. NHS Digital currently has at least 16 different systems to collect data and the team hope to make it easier to send data to the centre of the NHS by removing the need for manual intervention and manual data quality reports by the provider.
He was followed by Ann Slee, NHSX’s Associate CCIO of medicines, who talked about the rapid developments in digitising medications information in order to improve safe, effective prescribing and use of medicines, which has been in the headlines recently with the government's national overprescribing report. The feedback from attendees was good with members particularly pleased to hear that 12 suppliers were part of working group for the ISN.
Advisory Board members also heard from PRSB’s Head of Transformation and Delivery Oliver Lake, who introduced our work programme, which includes developing standards for the use of SNOMED in cancer services. PRSB Head of Partnerships, Rebecca Hughes, gave an update on the Partner Scheme and welcomed new Quality Partners Person Centred Software and Everylife.
The ISN is based on the UK Core FHIR Profiles, which are developed directly from the PRSB information standards for meds and allergies. You can read more about how we assisted the ISN’s development here.
The Data Liaison Service carries out its work in collaboration with other NHS Digital departments and subject matter experts, including the Data Standards Assurance Service, and you can find out more by emailing dataliaison@nhs.net
Catch up: Digital staff passport consultation
NHS England and NHS Improvement has asked the PRSB to conduct a piece of discovery research as part of a broader project to develop a standard which will underpin a digital staff passport for healthcare workers. The digital document will confirm important aspects of someone’s employment status, such as registration details and right to work, which will allow them to work in different settings without having to fill in their credentials whenever they move from one setting to another. PRSB has worked with colleagues across the NHS to develop a high-level outline standard for doctors in training and in October; we held a webinar to get feedback from healthcare workers on this standard outline.
PRSB advisor and Professor of Practice at Warwick Business School, Bernard Crump, led the session and attendees heard from colleagues from the Improving Employment Models team at NHSE/I, about the overall programme for enabling staff movements and the recent success of the COVID-19 Digital Staff Passport, which will serve as the model for this staff passport.
Views on what information should be included in the passport included sick leave records, pay records and even non-essential training qualifications. For example, advanced life support training isn’t mandatory training but is necessary to work in some settings so will have to sit in the ‘mandatory requirements’ section of the information standard.
The team will analyse the findings from the webinar and finalise the discovery report with recommendations for the development of the full standard. Contact info@theprsb.org for more information.
Take part: The social prescribing survey is LIVE
The PRSB has created a 1st draft standard for social prescribing and we are now consulting further through a survey to gather the views of social prescribers, other related professionals and those who use social prescribing services. The survey takes 8 minutes to complete and will be key in ensuring the standard represents as many people as possible. We encourage you to take part by clicking below.
Looking ahead, we will be publishing surveys for our 111 referrals and diabetes projects – keep your eyes peeled!
The PRSB has been commissioned by NHSX to develop national standardised nursing documentation and this month, PRSB nurse researchers and analysts hosted three focus groups – for adult nurses, paediatric and young people nurses, and service-users - to inform this work.
Join PRSB: We’re recruiting two Non-Executive Directors to PRSB’s Board
We are recruiting two new Non-Executive Directors to join PRSB’s Board, with backgrounds in health and care technology and/or social care. The PRSB Board is a vibrant, multi-professional group that is passionate about improving the experience of people who use care services by developing information standards, supporting their implementation through offers such as the Standards Partnership Scheme and deepening engagement across all four nations of the United Kingdom. There has never been a better time to join the PRSB.
For the full job description, click here. To apply, follow this link and please provide a CV (max 3 sides of A4), a letter of application that addresses the role’s requirements and the names of two referees to recruitment@theprsb.org. PRSB is an equal opportunity employer and we encourage people from under-represented communities to get in touch with us about these roles and apply.
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