Health policy briefings

Throughout the year Holyrood magazine will publish a programme of Holyrood Health Policy Special Reports offering readers in-depth, focused, forward-looking analysis of a specific policy and therapeutic areas.

Special Reports are edited by Phil Atkinson, written by our in house team supported by independently commissioned writers who are the leading academic and professional leaders in their field. This means that they are both accessible to the general reader and at the same time authoritative in terms of policy discussion.

Health Policy in context

Health services are, and always have been, in the process of evolution as new challenges arise and new treatments become available. This is both desirable and inevitable. With the Scottish Government now as a matter of policy seeking to redesign the NHSiS to meet the demographic and public health challenges the nation faces, innovation is a central element of the long-term strategy to secure the future of the NHS.

Seen in the context of service redesign, new treatments can offer the NHSiS some much needed opportunities. There are several examples of new treatments resulting in better management of diseases and conditions, resulting in cost savings both to the NHS itself as a result of service re-design the new treatments make possible – in the form of fewer emergency re-admissions and reduced need for expensive care by consultants - and to government generally, as people are enabled to resume careers, earn proper salaries and pay tax. New treatments can help make the NHSiS more efficient in the long run.

A Partnership Opportunity

Holyrood magazine has over the years published a number of policy briefings on specific policy and therapeutic areas, designed specifically to make the complex issues surrounding service re-design and new treatments more accessible to the lay policy-maker. While each has been unique, they have had certain elements in common:

• An overview of a given disease or condition, written by a leading authority (Scotland is lucky in having many leading authorities across many therapeutic areas), identifying incidence, at-risk groups, environmental factors and other relevant information
• A technology overview, summarising the past treatments and their effectiveness and identifying new technologies which are changing the way the disease is treated.
• An account by a nurse specialist of how services can be re-designed to make treatment more patient-centred
• A patient’s view of the difficulties they have had in accessing treatment, of treatments that have worked for them and of the effect it has had on his or her life.
• An account by a patient’s group of what they would like to see happen in order to take forward treatment of their disease.

The briefings are written as journalism, not as learned papers, and are written in such a way as to enable an averagely intelligent lay person – an MSP or a journalist, say – to speak for five minutes on the subject and make sense. This means that they can be read with profit by all those people who have an interest in a therapeutic or policy area. They offer the opportunity for individual groups to explain the role they play in policy development and service re-design, and to learn*+ more about the concerns of other stakeholders. It’s in this way that new partnerships are formed. 

Work in progress

We are currently actively researching  the following therapeutic areas which will be published during  2008:

•         Dermatology
•         Diabetes
•         Rheumatology
•         Respiratory disease

 Adding value

To maximise the value of these Special Reports, they will be:

• mailed out to all recipients of the Holyrood magazine
• copies supplied to supportinig organisations for promotional purposes, distribution to delegates at conferences, mailings to key business partners and sales force support.
• uploaded on the Holyrood website for 12 months.
• published alongside the electronic version of Holyrood magazine

Costs

Special Reports are supported by sponsorship, which can come from a single sponsor or from a group of companies or organisations. Limited amounts of advertising can be made available. Actual costs depend on the size of the supplement, its circulation and the amount of time required in its preparation. Please discuss this with Phil Atkinson on 0131 270 xxxx.