Latest Blogs

I hope it’s no spoiler that the answer to the Health Foundation’s latest report ‘Are intermediate care services stretched too thin?’ is a resounding yes. Short-term care services aimed at improving people’s independence are all too often facing a stark choice between using a bed for prevention or for rehabilitation. The report reveals that step-up care beds are being ‘lost’ due to the delayed discharges of step-down patients, reducing the ability of some intermediate care facilities to act as preventative services. Lack of rehab causing readmissions It also found that 37 per cent of step-down

After an incredible weekend of insightful discussions at the CSP Annual Conference, it's clear that the conversations we started on data, digital and informatics have only just begun. Let's keep the momentum going by staying connected and sharing ideas! On Saturday, the second day of the conference, the CSP Physiotherapy Health Informatics Strategy (PHIS) team led a discussion with members about their challenges with using data, digital and informatics in their practice. We also discussed some solutions that they had implemented and what they might want from a group of like-minded members who

The meeting was co-hosted by Professor The Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (also President of the CSP) and Dr James Davies MP. There were many GPs in the group but also representatives from other professions, patient organisations, think tanks, central leadership organisations, and other professional bodies. I was invited as the Health Informatics Lead for the CSP in recognition of the work we are doing on using digital in physiotherapy as well as my role representing AHPs in digital health networks. In the meeting the key findings of the research study “ Remote by Default 2: the new normal?” were

The FDP is a platform that will sit across NHS trusts and integrated care systems, allowing them to compare, analyse, and share data across geographical, demographic and organisational boundaries. The announcement makes bold claims about the impact of the FDP on some of the long-term challenges experienced in healthcare. The benefit of a safe, efficient and inclusive way of sharing data would be an incredible advance for healthcare in England. Indeed, other countries have been working on it for a number of years already, with the Encompass programme in Northern Ireland, and the National

The CSP welcomes the Labour health mission in which party leader Keir Starmer detailed the desire to lead a tech revolution in the NHS In England including increased use of the NHS App, patient-focussed booking of appointments, fully digital health records, use of AI, genomics, incentives for innovation, and more. While we welcome the intention to use digital technology to drive improvement in healthcare provision, there has been a growing workforce of clinical and technical staff trying to do this for a number of years already with varying levels of success. Members of the physiotherapy

In his presentation, Sajid Javid confirmed that digital is of huge importance to the health and social care sector and transformation in this area is critical to modernising services. He acknowledged that health and social care is currently following an unsustainable path and that it cannot continue like this, repeating a previous statement likening the NHS as “Blockbuster in the Netflix age”. He believes that digital transformation is the engine that will spearhead the change needed so we can better meet the public expectation, using the momentum gained in digital from the pandemic as the

Across the five days I heard from UK and international leaders in digital health and social care delivery including Simon Eccles, Natasha Phillips, Sonia Patel, Russ Branzell, Shera Chok, Shayne Hunter, Sarah Wilkinson and Matthew Gould. On Thursday I heard from UK secretary of state for health and social care , Matt Hancock on the next steps of digital health leadership in England. He announced his five next steps for digital health in England. Although this announcement is for England only I hope that it will be echoed by the health departments in the devolved governments throughout the UK