NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002

NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2014-04-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0215071719

NHS patients have the right to receive elective pre-planned consultant-led care within 18 weeks of being referred for treatment. In 2012-13, there were 19.1 million referrals to hospitals in England, with hospital-related costs of around £16 billion. The standards are that 90% of patients admitted to hospital, and 95% of other patients, should have started treatment within 18 weeks of being referred. In April 2013, NHS England introduced zero tolerance of any patient waiting more than 52 weeks. The Department of Health cannot be sure that the waiting time data NHS England publishes, based on information from NHS trust, is accurate. Trusts are struggling with a hotchpotch of IT and paper based systems that are not easily pulled together, which makes it difficult for them to track and collate the patient information needed to manage and record patients' waiting time. The National Audit Office (NAO) found that waiting times for nearly a third of cases it reviewed at seven trusts were not supported by documented evidence, and that a further 26% were simply wrong. Multiple organisations have a quality assurance role. However the external audit provided in the past by the Audit Commission has yet to be replaced and the Department acknowledged the need to do so, with regular spot checks being undertaken to ensure accuracy. But responsibilities have not been clearly defined.

HC 1114 - Probation: Landscape Review

HC 1114 - Probation: Landscape Review
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2014-05-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0215072790

The Ministry of Justice is implementing wholesale changes to how rehabilitation services for offenders are delivered in England and Wales on a highly ambitious timescale. It intends to introduce new private and voluntary providers, bring in a payment by results system, create a new National Probation Service and extend the service to short-term prisoners in a very short time period. This is very challenging and this report sets out a number of risks that need to be managed. The probation service in England and Wales supervised 225,000 offenders in our communities during 2012-13, at a cost of £853 million. The service is currently delivered by 35 Probation Trusts which are independent Non-Departmental Public Bodies, reporting directly to the National Offender Management Service. As part of the Ministry's Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, the Trusts will cease to operate from 31 May 2014 and will be abolished shortly afterwards, to be replaced by a National Probation Service and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies. The scale, complexity and pace of the reforms give rise to risks around value for money which need to be carefully managed. The Committee welcomes the Accounting Officer's assurances that the Ministry will not proceed with the arrangements unless it is safe to do so. The Ministry expects the new National Probation Service and the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies to begin operating from 1 June 2014 with only a limited opportunity for parallel running of the new arrangements during April and May 2014. The movement of staff, records and implementation of the arrangements required to make the new structures operate are ongoing. Initially the Community Rehabilitation Companies will be in public ownership pending a share sale, expected in time to launch a payment by results mechanism in 2015.

HC 1063 - Education Funding Agency And Department For Education 2012-13 Financial Statements

HC 1063 - Education Funding Agency And Department For Education 2012-13 Financial Statements
Author:
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2014
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 0215072871

This Public Accounts Committee report examines the Education Funding Agency and Department for Education 2012-13 financial statements. Since it was set up in April 2012, the Education Funding Agency (the Agency) has succeeded in getting money to education providers on time. In 2012-13, the Agency distributed £51 billion of capital and revenue funding for 10 million learners to local authorities, academies, academy trusts, further education institutions, sixth-form colleges and other types of education providers. Between 2012-13 and 2015-16, the Agency expects that the number of all education providers it funds will increase by around 50% to almost 12,000, of which nearly 7,000 will be academies. At the same time, the Agency plans to reduce its administration costs by 15%, a huge challenge. It should improve efficiency, transparency and accountability in the education sector, especially in respect of the growing number of academies, but lacks the systems and data it needs. The Agency has not yet achieved an acceptable level of compliance with its reporting requirements and the Committee finds it is too reactive and does not spot risks or intervene in schools quickly enough. Not enough is known about conflicts of interest in academies and the risk they pose to the proper use of public money, not The Agency has no way of knowing whether academy chief executives and trustees are 'fit-and-proper persons', and there are flaws in the methodology used to consolidate the accounts of academies, as well as data quality issues, which undermine accountability.

HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools

HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2014-05-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0215071921

Recent high-profile failures demonstrate that the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency's oversight arrangements for free schools are not yet working effectively. The Department and Agency have set up an approach to oversight which emphasises schools' autonomy, but standards of financial management and governance in some free schools are clearly not up to scratch. The Agency relies on high levels of compliance by schools, yet fewer than half of free schools submitted their required financial returns for 2011-12 to the Agency on time. Whistleblowers played a major role in uncovering recent scandals when problems should have been identified through the Agency's monitoring processes. There is also concern that applications for new free schools are not emerging from areas of greatest forecast need for more and better school places. The Department needs to set out how, and by when, it will encourage applications from areas with a high or severe forecast need for extra schools places, working with local authorities where appropriate. The Department should also be more open about the reasons for making decisions. Capital costs of the free school programme are escalating. The most recent round of approved free schools had a greater proportion of more expensive types, such as secondaries, special and alternative provision, located in more expensive regions such as London, the South East and South West. If this mix of approved free schools continues, there is a risk of costs exceeding available funding.

HC 1110 - Promoting Electronic Growth Locally

HC 1110 - Promoting Electronic Growth Locally
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2014-05-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 021507274X

Despite the large sums available for promoting economic growth locally, little money has actually reached businesses. Of the £3.9 billion that has been allocated in total to these initiatives, only nearly £400 million had made it to local projects by the end of 2012-13. Under the Regional Growth Fund, the largest of the schemes, the Departments will need to spend £1.4 billion this year, compared to the £1.2 billion spent over the previous three years. Some £1 billion of the remaining £3.5 billion allocated to initiatives is currently parked with intermediary bodies such as local authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and banks - and the rest with the Departments. The Departments should introduce binding milestones for distributing funds and move quickly to claw back money not being spent - or spent disproportionately on administration - and redistribute it to better performers. Progress in creating jobs is falling well short of the Departments' initial expectations. The Departments' estimate of the cost per job created has also risen from £30,400 in Round One to £52,300 in Round Four - a 72% increase. The Departments also agreed that there is a risk of double-counting, with the same jobs scored more than once to different initiatives. The local growth initiatives have not been managed as a coordinated programme with a common strategy, objectives or plan. The recent creation by the Departments of a single growth directorate and a programme board is welcomed. Concern remains however that the Departments are not yet using the new oversight arrangements effectively.

HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15

HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 41
Release: 2015
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0215085779

This report summarises the key areas of the Committee's work over the past five years. It draws out the areas where progress has been made and where their successors might wish to press in future. The Committee has assiduously followed the taxpayer's pound wherever it was spent. Since 2010 they held 276 evidence sessions and published 244 unanimous reports to hold government to account for its performance. 88% of their recommendations were accepted by departments. In many cases they successfully secured substantial changes, for example with the once secret tax avoidance industry. They secured consensus from government and from industry that private providers of public services do have a duty of care to the taxpayer, and in pushing the protection of whistleblowers further up the agenda of all government departments. By drawing attention to mistakes in the Department for Transport's procurement of the West Coast Mainline, more recent procurements for Crossrail, Thameslink and Intercity Express have all benefited from more expert advice and a more appropriate level of challenge from senior staff. After discovery in 2012-13 that 63% of calls to government call centres were to higher rate telephone numbers, the Government accepted our recommendation that telephone lines serving vulnerable and low income groups never be charged above the geographic rate and that 03 numbers should be available for all government telephone lines. They also secured a commitment to close large mental health hospitals.

The AI Book

The AI Book
Author: Ivana Bartoletti
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-06-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119551900

Written by prominent thought leaders in the global fintech space, The AI Book aggregates diverse expertise into a single, informative volume and explains what artifical intelligence really means and how it can be used across financial services today. Key industry developments are explained in detail, and critical insights from cutting-edge practitioners offer first-hand information and lessons learned. Coverage includes: · Understanding the AI Portfolio: from machine learning to chatbots, to natural language processing (NLP); a deep dive into the Machine Intelligence Landscape; essentials on core technologies, rethinking enterprise, rethinking industries, rethinking humans; quantum computing and next-generation AI · AI experimentation and embedded usage, and the change in business model, value proposition, organisation, customer and co-worker experiences in today’s Financial Services Industry · The future state of financial services and capital markets – what’s next for the real-world implementation of AITech? · The innovating customer – users are not waiting for the financial services industry to work out how AI can re-shape their sector, profitability and competitiveness · Boardroom issues created and magnified by AI trends, including conduct, regulation & oversight in an algo-driven world, cybersecurity, diversity & inclusion, data privacy, the ‘unbundled corporation’ & the future of work, social responsibility, sustainability, and the new leadership imperatives · Ethical considerations of deploying Al solutions and why explainable Al is so important

OECD Health Policy Studies Waiting Time Policies in the Health Sector What Works?

OECD Health Policy Studies Waiting Time Policies in the Health Sector What Works?
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2013-02-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9264179089

This book provides a framework to understand why there are waiting lists for elective surgery in some OECD countries and not in others. It also describes how waiting times are measured in OECD countries and reviews different policy approaches to tackling excessive waiting times.

Pathy's Principles and Practice of Geriatric Medicine

Pathy's Principles and Practice of Geriatric Medicine
Author: Alan J. Sinclair
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 3453
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1119954142

This new edition of the comprehensive and renowned textbook Principles and Practice of Geriatric Medicine offers a fully revised and updated review of geriatric medicine. It covers the full spectrum of the subject, features 41 new chapters, and provides up-to-date, evidence-based, and practical information about the varied medical problems of ageing citizens. The three editors, from UK, USA and France, have ensured that updated chapters provide a global perspective of geriatric medicine, as well as reflect the changes in treatment options and medical conditions which have emerged since publication of the 4th edition in 2006. The book includes expanded sections on acute stroke, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory diseases, and features a new section on end-of-life care. In the tradition of previous editions, this all-encompassing text continues to be a must-have text for all clinicians who deal with older people, particularly geriatric medical specialists, gerontologists, researchers, and general practitioners. This title is also available as a mobile App from MedHand Mobile Libraries. Buy it now from Google Play or the MedHand Store. Praise for the 4th edition: "...an excellent reference for learners at all clinical and preclinical levels and a useful contribution to the geriatric medical literature." —Journal of the American Medical Association, November 2006 5th edition selected for 2012 Edition of Doody's Core TitlesTM