Consultant's catch-up

Hello again. Well, November has been a busy and an interesting month. Alongside my regular visits, mostly with the NHS this month, I have had a couple of interesting speaking invitations. The first was to contribute to a local Darzi Review workshop in the Staying Healthy work stream. These locally led groups, involving clinicians and others, look at the evidence for improved models of care and key barriers and enablers to improving the quality of care. After hearing speakers from the Public Health Observatory giving an overview about the local public health profile and identifying key challenges and areas of inequity of health outcomes, I was given an opportunity to talk about the NICE evidence base that might contribute to the Staying Healthy agenda. Later in the day the participants grappled with prioritising key work areas and key messages to populate a report being produced. There is public health guidance already published, and due to be published in the forthcoming months and years, that will be a resource to support interventions to improve the health of the population.

The second engagement was following an initial visit to a county council earlier in the year and a subsequent invitation to return and participate in a health scrutiny seminar focusing on planning the work programme for the coming year. This well-attended seminar (comprising council members who sit on the Health Scrutiny Committee, council officers, PCT staff and representatives from the patient and public involvement forum) afforded the opportunity to explain the work of NICE and answer queries relating to our work and local implementation issues. I highlighted guidance that may be relevant to local health priorities identified in the local area agreement and in the previous year's scrutiny work programme. The presentation also stimulated a discussion around the role of scrutiny and how NICE guidance can contribute to local scrutiny and I am looking forward to seeing how this develops next year.

Well another busy month is coming to an end. The next consultant catch up will be in 2008.....have a good festive season and we look forward to working with you next year. If you have any questions or would like to meet with your local Implementation Consultant, please get in touch.

jayne.chidgey-clark@nice.org.uk