www.informationprescription.info
Final report on the information prescriptions pilot project
Background
The Department of Health white paper, 'Our health, our care, our say' published in January 2006, made a commitment to improving access to appropriate information for people with health or social care needs. It stated: 'we propose that services give all people with long-term health and social care needs and their carers an 'information prescription'. Information prescriptions will be nationally recognised as a source of key information on services and care - seamlessly and formally integrated into the care process.
Information prescriptions will ensure that people with long-term health conditions or social care needs, and their carers, receive the timely information they need to help them manage their condition better – to live longer, healthier and more independent lives. This includes helpful and relevant information, for example about conditions and treatments, care services, benefits, and support groups.
Key objectives of information prescription pilot programme
When planning the information prescription piloting programme, the Department of Health defined four key objectives for the programme to achieve. These were to:
- Contribute to the successful implementation of information prescriptions across England to everyone with a long-term condition
- Inform the national policy direction, ensuring the implementation of information prescriptions is fully integrated within other major policy drivers
- Shape the practical design and delivery of national resources and guidance to support the local implementation of information prescriptions
- Provide evidence on the effectiveness and impact of information prescriptions on the public, professionals, and organisations alike.
Information prescription pilot sites
To ensure the successful design and delivery of information prescriptions, the Department of Health recruited 20 pilot sites to test and provide evidence of their effectiveness and their impact on individuals, professionals and organisations.
The pilots were located in a range of health and social care settings including primary, secondary, social care, acute and community mental health. They covered a wide range of long term conditions including cancer, cystic fibrosis, sight loss, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, arthritis and asthma. Many of the pilots developed their information prescription processes by setting up partnership arrangements between national voluntary sector organisations and local statutory health and social care services.
The piloting phase came to a close in January 2008. The information and momentum built through this piloting phase is now being used to help shape what support is needed nationally to help organisations introduce information prescriptions locally to meet the needs of their local populations.
The evaluation consortium
The Department of Health commissioned an evaluation consortium to undertake an independent assessment of the piloting programme. The consortium was made up of three organisations – the Office for Public Management (OPM), University of York and GfK NOP.
The evaluation consortium was tasked with assessing and reporting on the specific approaches being adopted across the 20 pilots involved in the programme and ensuring that these findings provided the evidence needed to ensure the key piloting programme objectives were achieved.
The Final Report
The evaluation consortium has completed their final report and the various documents are available for download from the DH website.
The final report concludes that "high numbers of patients and carers have found the information useful and professionals involved in the pilots were positive about information prescriptions. In qualitative interviews with pilots, there was strong support for the concept and potential of information prescriptions, with most of the pilots continuing to implement information prescriptions beyond the pilot funding allocation."
Here is a list of all the documents available from the DH website
Interim and summary report
Interim report, November 2007 (PDF, 1740K)
Evaluation of Information Prescriptions - Interim Report - Survey Annex - November 2007 (PDF, 52K)
Evaluation of Information Prescriptions - Interim Report - Executive Summary - November 2007 (PDF, 746K)
Final summary report, March 2008 (PDF, 767K)
Evaluation of Information Prescriptions Summary Report - without appendices - March 2008 (PDF, 384K)
Appendix 1 - Descriptions of Pilots - March 2008 (PDF, 116K)
Appendix 2 - Glossary of Terms - March 2008 (PDF, 60K)
Appendix 3 - Examples of IP Templates - March 2008 (PDF, 303K)
Final report (August 2008)
Final report (PDF, 2400K)
Executive summary (PDF, 120K)
Appendix 1 - Survey annex (PDF, 294K)
Appendix 2 - Supplementary calculations (PDF, 152K)
Appendix 3 - Literature search (PDF, 129K)
Appendix 4 - Exploring the contribution information technology can make to information prescribing (PDF, 1412K)
Appendix 5 - Evaluation impact model (PDF, 114K)
Appendix 6 - Descriptions of the 20 pilots (PDF, 136K)
Appendix 7 - IP templates developed by pilot sites (PDF, 1383K)
Appendix 8 - Glossary of terms (PDF, 59K)
Appendix 9 - Background document to recruit IP pilots - January 2007 (PDF, 88K)
Appendix 10 - Detailed recommendations (PDF, 61K)
Recommendations and DH response (Gateway reference 10316)