Doctors believe that more should be done to meet the needs of patients with multiple health problems and that the current NHS model is outdated and needs radical adjustments.  Doctors have gone as far as to say that the current system could potentially be putting patients’ lives at risk. 

More should be done to provide ‘joined up care’ for those with more than one health problem to better provide for them and to reduce the amount of time and money they have to spend on visiting various different health professionals.  It is also believed that if there is more collaboration with other health professionals there may be a reduction in the number of drugs prescribed to the patients. 

A study was recently conducted across Scotland to gauge just how bad the issue of long term health disorders and their treatment is.  It was found that surprisingly, patients with two or more serious health problems are actually under the age of 65 and something urgent must be done to alter the way patients are treated.  It is believed that if something isn’t done now, as these patients get older, a vast strain will be put on the health services that it will not be able to cope with. 

As pointed out by the co-authors of the study, the main focus of any research and education are generally focused on a single illness or problem; which is clear from the number of specialists across the NHS.  With the number of people with more than one condition growing, so too should the number of more general health professionals who have the ability to deal with these problems and coordinate the appropriate patient care.  It is believed that joined up care would help save both time and money and would make better use of the funding and resources of the NHS. 

Of course, these issues have been a concern for some time and have resulted in a number of people opting into more specialist care through health insurance providers as a way to combat the difficulties in dealing with multiple conditions.   

Hinchingbrooke, the UK’s first privately operated general hospital, will be required to make significant cost savings if it wants to continue to operate.  The Health Care Trust in Cambridgeshire managed by healthcare partnership Circle is the first of its kind and plans to make improvements to the way it operates, whilst making significant cost reductions.  In order to meet its targets, it needs a surplus of at least £70 million over the next 10 years to clear its debts and achieve its contracted share for Circle.

It is assumed that substantial cost savings will need to achieved to meet this target, as over the last 10 years the health care trust have failed to have an annual surplus of over £600,000.  Circle began managing Hinchingbrooke in February this year, and if the initiative is successful, it could be a model that could potentially expand to other NHS health trusts. 

It has been projected that the initiative could receive substantial losses that could be in the tens of millions in the first couple of years.  Representatives from Circle have not commented on what cuts will be taking place and how severe they will be, only that their main priority is to improve the services at Hinchingbrooke.  They have stated that it is not just their intention to turn the health care trust into a sustainable operation but to transform it into one of the most successful general hospitals operating in the country. 

Christina McAnea, head of health at Unison, has come out saying that Circle should make assurances that they will not attempt to profit from the initiative until all debts are paid off in full.  Any surplus money should go towards paying off the hospital debts are improving their offering for patients instead of profits for Circle.   Circle is currently set to receive a share of any surplus over £2 million in order to incentivise the partnership into improving both performance and make cost savings for Hinchingbrooke. 

Fears exist on this initiative and what it will mean in terms of what cuts will be made on how it will affect the level of care for patients.  There are stark differences to this and how private hospitals are operated by health insurance providers, which are funded through insurance fees as opposed to being forced to make cost savings.   

It's good to see PMI on the television - it helps to spread awareness of what this product is within the wide range of different financial products that are out there. And the fact that the ad looks great too of course!

 

Experts have warned that employers who use third party companies to manage sickness absence and business healthcare could end up shirking responsibility for dealing with the issues.  It is important that managers play a vital part in reducing absence to get under the problem at hand.

The former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost, who also co-authored the Sickness Absence Review with Dame Carol Black, believes that line managers are a vital link to improving levels of absence within an organisation.  When talking at a conference around the Sickness Absence Review, Frost argued that organisations relying on third parties to manage absence must make sure that doesn’t lead managers to think that they have no responsibility for helping to manage and improve levels of absence.

The most important of any sickness management initiative is how it is implemented internally and has a great effect on its future success.  An important factor is also the relationship between a line manager and the employees they are responsible for, in helping to reduce the level of sickness absence.  According to Frost a breakdown in the relationship between the two parties can result in high levels of stress and can cause problems.  In these instances it might be a solution to give the employee another role with the organisation to keep them in the company but reduce the levels of stress. 

Frosts view was backed up by the director of the Centre for Workforce Effectiveness at The Work Foundation Professor Stephen Bevan.  He also believes that line managers play an important role in managing sickness absence however he is concerned that employers will tend to focus on the symptoms rather than the causes of sickness absence.  This view is not a long term strategy when attempting to reduce overall sickness absence.  Bevan argues that one of the big issues is the level of low quality managers within UK organisations that creating poor relationships and high stress situations causing an increase in employee absence.

President Barack Obama is facing quite possibly one of the toughest political challenges.  The US President has seen his Affordable Care Act dragged to court as he would like to ensure that 30 million Americans have health insurance.  However this has been met with cries that forcing people to have private health insurance is “unconstitutional” and those who support the idea feel appalled that one of the most affluent global countries in the world has huge sections of people deprived of healthcare.

Meanwhile in the UK the Government have been pushing through the new Health and Social Care Bill which sees massive changes within the English healthcare system.  The government wants to hand over more power to GP’s and have more say on where money is to be spent, the idea behind this is that GP’s are at the forefront of local healthcare.

Whilst the UK and the US are respectively at domestic loggerheads trying to decide the best paths for private healthcare the rest of Europe looks on scratching its head, wondering why both are so resistant to change.  Both countries have hardly covered themselves in glory as complacency and a rigid resistance to change has seen them perform rather poorly.

Doctors across the world believe that with a good standard of care babies shouldn’t die.  In America the number of children per 1,000 who die is 6.5 infants.  In France, for example, that number is only 3.1 per 1,000 births and the average across continental Europe is much lower.  At the other end of life the average life expectancy in Switzerland is three years older than America, who are leaders in fields such as cardiology.

The health outlook in the UK doesn’t appear any better, every other month it seems there is mass spreading of deadly infections such as C-difficile and MRSA.  Cancer survival rates in the UK are not as good as they are in mainland Europe, life prolonging drugs are generally blocked by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as they are deemed too expensive.   

The best course of action for the UK and the US would be to look at countries and see how they could make improvements, looking at new and fresh ideas.  For example in Holland they have a pool healthcare system which allows groups of individuals to pay insurers the same premium regardless of age or health status.  Then and only then could the two great nations move forward and truly improve their healthcare systems.

Communication and the culture of a workplace are vital to the long term successes of wellbeing strategies.  The report concluded that the effectiveness of such strategies will be met negatively if they are seen as only to make employees work harder.  This is the third report of its kind for work well being strategies.

In the report Professor Cary Cooper added that in order for these strategies to succeed they must be communicated to staff in a very clear and concise manner.  Also, all levels of management must be on board with the plan as this will carry throughout straight through an organisation.  Creating a motivated, efficient and committed workforce will be a crucial factor for many employers but many understand that there is an underlying moral duty to their staff’s wellbeing.

By offering services such as gym member ships and occupational health services many employees can get more out of their staff.  By creating a positive, helpful environment in the office it will create a harder working, creative workforce.  Many, especially in the creative industries, offer unique ways to work.  You just have to look at Google’s offices where they have table tennis tables and slides in their offices which show they are prepared to go that extra mile where staffs wellbeing is concerned.

Many companies have a strategy, although not as extreme as Google’s,  and they all ensure that their staff’s wellbeing is a priority because they understand that when their staff are happy then their business will generally do better.

It was recently confirmed that health insurance provider AXA PPP Healthcare has acquired online health insurance company Health-On-Line in an attempt to strengthen its presence online.

This is in-line with a number of moves from the health insurance provider to strengthen its core offering after it recently divested its dental insurance unit Denplan.  Denplan was sold off to Simplyhealth for £115 million allowing the company to focus on its highly successful private healthcare business.  It should be noted however that AXA PPP Healthcare do still offer private dental and you can find dental insurance quotes on their site.

This change to their focus, as well as the acquisition of Health-On-Line will help to improve their low cost-offering, aiming to provide for both individuals as well as SME businesses.  Prior to the deal, AXA PPP Healthcare had been the underwriter and claims handler for Health-On-Line since 2005, however the acquisition means that they will be able to accelerate their low cost offering through the 170 strong team, based in Bournemouth.

The purchase of Health-On-Line means that AXA improved their online functions through the strong IT infrastructure already in place at Health-On-Line further adding to the cross channel distributor’s profile.   Keith Gibbs, the chief executive of AXA PPP Healthcare has commented that the acquisition is a strong move for the insurer and will be vital for sustaining and growing profitability within this product offering.

According to an article recently published by the publicservice.co.uk site, "organisations that enhance the engagement and wellbeing of their employees will benefit".

The global workforce survey of 2007/8, according to the Guardian newspaper, says the key areas of engagement as include "the ability to participate in decision making, the encouragement given for innovative thinking, the availability of skill-enhancing job assignments, and the interest shown by senior executives in employee well-being".

The same report found that only 21% of people felt 'fully engaged' at work - so it's no wonder that employee engagement is now becoming a priority.

By looking at staff needs from a 360 degree perspective, things such as healthcare cover for staff and employee assistance will also help enhance conditions for employees. of course if you work for yourself, then small business health insurance for the self employed would be the requirement along with finding ways to engage with your work.

If you're looking to buy health insurance cover, then it makes good sense to find out as much as you can about the subject before you start shopping around.

Luckily - if you're new to the subject, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) have a consumer section on their website which provides some very useful information so thet when you venture into the medical insurance marketplace, you'll have a firmer idea of what health cover can do for you and what to expect from it.

Under the heading health and protection insurance, the ABI offer a series of PMI information documents for consumers (and potential future buyers) of PMI to download.

And in addition to resouces like these, you can easily find information on health and healthcare on health blogs and in the health and wellbeing section of newspapers - although the latter is likely to have less that's specifically on the topic of PMI.

 

We all have those days where we have so much on we barely move from our desk all day however scientists have advised that people should get up from their desks and move about a bit every twenty minutes.  Researchers for the Diabetes Care Journal discovered that a small amount of activity every twenty minutes helps to reduce high levels of insulin and glucose which has been linked to increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

It has been shown that when we are sitting at rest, our bodies muscles are in a ‘state of disuse’ and not aiding the body in regulating metabolic processes.  After eating, glucose levels in the body rise as well as insulin levels, feeding cells blood sugar for energy before dropping to normal.

The research focused on a test group of nineteen overweight adults who did not regularly exercise, tested in an office-like environment for seven hours with their blood sugar and insulin levels tracked throughout the day.  Each person was monitored over three separate days across a number of weeks with varying levels of activity undertaken on each day. 

On the first day the research participants only got up for toilet breaks, with the rest of the time spent sitting at their desk.  The second day was broken up every twenty minutes with a two minute break to walk around with the third broken up in the same way however with more vigorous activity during each break.

On the first day, after drinking a high sugar drink within a couple of hours, the participants experienced large spikes in blood sugar levels.  The following two days where the participants moved around, blood sugar spikes were reduced significantly.  On the day where they did activity every twenty minutes levels were twenty-four percent lower and on the days of more vigorous activity levels were almost thirty percent lower.  Levels of insulin spikes saw similar reductions when activity was undertaken every twenty minutes as opposed to the days of no breaks. 

If you are an employer you walk a fine line between maintaining a productive workforce throughout the day and healthy employees.  Of course healthy employees mean fewer expenses in sick days and a lower premium on small business health insurance.  Therefore reinforcing to employees to get short bursts of activity every twenty minutes could be more cost effective in the long-term.