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Evaluated examples of good practice - introduction and overview

  • Last modified date:
    9 March 2007

This section demonstrates to service commissioners and providers how some organisations have already tackled aspects of service delivery described in the NSF. Examples of good practice are included here under each of the NSF's Quality Requirements to help service providers and commissioners take practical steps to improve services. These examples will, of course, need to be adapted to suit your local organisation.

In publicising these examples to the NHS and social services, the Department of Health should not be seen as endorsing the overall performance of these service providers.

Introduction

The good practice examples are presented as a series of brief summaries. If you are interested in reading more about a particular example you can click on the link, which takes you to a full description of the service and contact details of the person who supplied the example.

In some cases the examples quoted address more than one Quality Requirement, and you may find that having read one example you have covered more than one of the issues identified as a priority for development in your service through the self-assessment process.

Points to note

Sources of the examples of good practice

The examples came from a number of different sources including:

  • members of the External Reference and Implementation Steering Groups
  • professional organisations
  • responses to a  questionnaire posted on the Department of Health's NSF website and sent to a range of contacts made during NSF consultation exercises.

How good practice examples are evaluated

Every example included here has been evaluated by the Implementation Group, using a set of agreed quality criteria set out on the best practice evaluation pro-forma. This will also be used to evaluate all future submissions.

Contacting the organisations listed

At the end of the full description of each good practice example are contact details for the person in the organisation who supplied the example. If you would like further information you can contact the person named and discuss your query with them directly. Many organisations have produced programmes, toolkits and policies that they are prepared to share with anyone interested in implementing something similar.

Future good practice

Clearly, further good practice will evolve during the implementation period of the NSF. As this is a live document it can be updated, which means service providers have the opportunity to send in further examples of good practice. These will then be evaluated and may be included in this guide.

How to submit an example for this site

Anyone wishing to make a submission can do so using the best practice submission pro-forma. Once completed, the form should be emailed to the address below.

Applying and adapting good practice examples

Most of the examples here relate to services for people with a long-term neurological condition, as this is the focus of the NSF for Long-term Conditions. However, some of the approaches and tools described in the examples could be used or adapted by services for other long-term conditions; these examples are identified with an asterisk in the text. 

The improvements to service provision described in these examples collectively are something to work towards over time. Services will wish to adapt the suggestions given here to suit their own organisation. It is advisable regularly to monitor any aims or goals to improve services and also to review and evaluate local circumstances. By including these examples, the Department of Health is not endorsing the overall performance of these organisations.

Action on Neurology

The Modernisation Agency's Action on Neurology programme was set up in 2003 to look at where improvements could be made in neurology services. A national steering group provided advice and guidance to ensure that the programme was in line with national priorities. Eight pilot sites were selected to find and test different ways of working that might improve the quality of and access to neurology services. Learning from the pilot sites has been published in a report. This is relevant to delivering the NSF for Long-term Conditions. You can also refer to the links below to see what the pilot sites have achieved.

The examples

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