The Week, 29 March 2019

1 Apr 2019 01:37 PM

Blog posted by: Eleonora Harwich, 29 March 2019. 

Reformer of The Week

Dr Ben Goldacre, Senior Clinical Research Fellow, University of Oxford, for calling for more practical research in healthcare to help solve issues the workforce and patients face, as it would be a better way of spending public resources.

Good Week For

AI in The Public Sector

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has launched a review which seeks to ensure that current frameworks and regulations are sufficient to uphold standards when artificial intelligence is used in the public sector.

Innovation In Healthcare

The Academic Health Science Networks in conjunction with the Association of British HealthTech Industries have created a routemap to help healthtech companies navigate the healthcare innovation space and make sure that successful  innovations reach patients faster.  

Bad Week For

The Disability Employment Gap

A new report from the National Audit Office shows that the Department for Work and Pensions has failed to close the disability employment gap, despite the rise in the number of disabled people in work.

Equality of Life Expectancy

According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics, the life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest areas of England and Wales has widened during the past decade.

Quote

“You will learn 1,000 times more trying to ship tools to people who actually use it and listening to their feedback than you ever will sitting delivering one paper that takes a year to get published in a journal,” Dr Ben Goldacre.

“I have seen first-hand the life-changing potential of probation at its best – but probation is not working as it should. It is not delivering well enough for some of the most troubled and sometimes troublesome people in society, when they and the wider public deserve better” Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation

Reform’s Week

This week Reform has published a report, Please procure responsibly: the state of public service commissioning,  which identifies several key areas where weak or underperforming elements in the commissioning cycle have led to failings in the procurement of public services and suggests potential solutions to some of these challenges. The report appeared in City AM, The MJ, Civil Service World, Public Finance, Facilities Management Journal, Local Gov, FE News, PublicTechnology and 24Housing. Both Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, and Melanie Maxwell Scott, Director of Policy, Business Services Association authored blogs for the report launch.

Claudia Martinez, Research Manager at Reform, wrote an opinion piece for the National Health Executive discussing how to maximise the value of the NHS Estate.

Eleonora Harwich, Director of Research, was interviewed by Moonshot for Life about healthcare data and Reform's recent report, Making NHS Data work for everyone.