The Prescribing Intelligence Team provides information support and analysis to the Medicines Management Team.

Our aim is to facilitate the implementation and maintenance of high quality, cost effective changes in prescribing habits and trends.

We do this by monitoring GP prescribing patterns, monitoring the implementation of both National and Local Strategies, developing practice formularies and helping set and monitor practice budgets. All this ultimately ensures that patients get the maximum benefit from their medicines.

The specialist prescribing system used is ePACT - electronic Prescribing And Cost Analysis system - a database which holds all national prescription data that is developed and maintained by the Prescription Services Division, a service supplied bv the NHS Business Services Authority.

The team is led by Viki Jenkins

 

NHS Wirral's Performance & Public Health Intelligence Team is made up of staff from both the Health Systems Management and Public Health Directorates of NHS Wirral, so our work covers a wide variety of health information.

Our team provides support in the form of information and intelligence to all parts of NHS Wirral and Wirral Council, drawing information from different sources in new (and existing) ways to improve health and wellbeing.

We also provide information on how NHS Wirral performs against our targets compared to other areas of England. Knowing how we are performing is vital to informing, monitoring and improving the health of our population, so this is a key part of the work of our team. Key elements of public health intelligence include; collection, generation, synthesis, appraisal, analysis, interpretation and communication of intelligence that assesses, measure and describes the health status, risks, needs and health outcome of populations.

Examples of what we do with public health information:

• Annual reports
• Needs Assessment (JSNA)
• Monitoring trends
• Performance monitoring (Outcomes Frameworks/Operating Framework)
• Commissioning services
• Research
• Equity audits/audits
• Surveys
• Ad hoc reports

For example, you will find information on the demography of the Wirral population, the leading causes of ill-health and inequalities locally, deprivation, plus information or links to information regarding the wider determinants of health, such as employment, education and housing via our Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for Wirral (JSNA).

For more information, please contact Bev Murray on 0151 651 0011

The Management Information System (MIS) Team are responsible for the ongoing development, delivery and management of the MIS, which is a web-based health information system for Wirral.

The system contains a wealth of local health information and is designed to be used by all NHS staff – both clinical and non-clinical - across Wirral. We continuously monitor it to ensure that all the information is up to date, accurate and consistent.

This includes providing one-to-one training, support to use the MIS and refresher training for anybody who has previously had access but has forgotten how it works.

Each user is given their own individual account with information relevant to their field of work. If you have never accessed the MIS before, e-mail Lee Kirkham who heads the MIS team to be given a password.

Log onto MIS.

 

The Primary Care Information Team work to support the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) with intelligence to support various functions. These include commissioning decisions, clinical decision making, monitoring of practice performance and GP & Health Professional information support.

We do this by supporting initiatives designed to improve patient care and promote healthy lifestyles. For example the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Risk Local Enhanced Service (LES), which sought to identify all patients aged 40-74 at risk of CVD and ensure that they were being monitored regularly. With the use of MIQUEST data extraction software, the team was able to provide the information to the key stakeholders. Other on-going LES monitoring includes, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), Learning Disability (LD), Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and Osteoporosis.

The primary care team provides Commissioning Intelligence to all practices within Wirral. The practices receive detailed monthly reports considering various aspects of clinical activity down to individual patient level where appropriate. To supplement this, the primary care team undertakes regular practice visits to discuss commissioning issues with practices in detail. This helps practices understand their data and helps to tackle issues facing individual practices as well as consortia.

As part of practice based commissioning, several new services have been set up in primary care (e.g. Minor surgery, Oral Surgery, Minor Injuries Service) and the Primary Care Team monitor the activity that takes place in those new services.

The team are also assist in improving data quality within primary care. The team offer expertise in areas such as clinical templates for data entry, referral form design to help GPs accurately send and record referrals and Clinical coding advice and support.

The team are also involved in supporting Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs) in their work with health initiatives. This is done via routine performance reports aimed to demonstrate the impact of nursing and community initiatives eg. The Integrated Care at Home Report.

For more information, please contact Paul Wormald or Matt Gilmore on 0151 651 0011

The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (2007) placed a duty on all Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to undertake a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).

In the new Health & Social Act (2012), it intends to support local clinical leadership and democratically elected leaders working together to deliver the best health and care services based on the best evidence of local needs. JSNAs and Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategies are an important means by which they can achieve this.

JSNAs are not an end in themselves but a continuous process of strategic assessment and planning. Members of the Performance & Public Health Intelligence Team, and other JSNA authors, provide the process of reflection on local intelligence to inform service planning and commissioning and also then a range of online content that in both cases seeks to identify current and future health and wellbeing needs and to understand current and predicted health and well-being outcomes across the different Wirral communities. In turn JSNA is used to help determine what actions local authorities, the NHS and other partners need to take to meet health and social care needs and to address the wider determinants that impact on health and wellbeing.

The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment process is underpinned by partnership working, community engagement and using relevant evidence. As such the team works with a number of partners, groups, communities and organisations to understand needs and provide a suitable analysis.

For more information, please contact please contact John Highton on 0151 651 0011

Research and Development support is provided by the Evidence Based Manager at NHS Wirral, who leads the generation and application of research and evaluation evidence across the organisation. The Evidence Based Manager works closely with commissioners, providers and stakeholders to offer support and expert advice into all stages of service design, planning, delivery and review. Main priority areas include:

• Supporting teams in critical review of the evidence underpinning service development,
• Developing tools to enable systematic service evaluation,
• Carrying out and providing programmes with evaluation support,
• Developing programmes of research to inform strategic goals and
• Developing opportunities for increased involvement of the Wirral population in health and social care research.

For more information, please contact Lindsey Gaskin Dodd on 0151 651 0011