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Health : Jargon buster

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Case studies

  • Advisory Boards - boards established to ensure the NHS engages with stakeholders in decision making.
  • Agenda for Change - NHS terms, conditions and pay for staff.
  • Allied Health Professionals - a team of health professionals (including occupational therapists and radiographers), distinct from medicine and nursing.
  • BMA - British Medical Association.
  • Care Quality Commission (CQC) - the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
  • Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) - specialist mental health services provided to under 18s.
  • Clinical team - a group of professionals working as a team to provide a particular service.
  • Community care - care provided outside a hospital setting.
  • Corporate governance - the system under which organisations are managed, directed and accountable.
  • Department of Health - government body responsible for delivering health and social care services.
  • Electronic patient record (EPR) - patient information held digitally.
  • EPS - electronic prescription service.
  • Family Health Services - community services through GPs, pharmacists, dentists and opticians.
  • Foundation Trust Network (FTN) - represents the views and promotes the common interests of NHS foundation trusts and those aspiring to foundation trust status.
  • Foundation trusts/hospitals - independent entities free from central government control, no longer performance managed by health authorities, but accountable to local people. All current NHS trusts will become or be part of a foundation trust.
  • GMC - General Medical Council.
  • Information Governance (IG) - policies, structures and practices used to ensure the confidentiality, security and ethical use of health and social care services records.
  • Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) - partnerships of private, voluntary, business and public sector groups to provide support and joint working strategies.
  • National Service Frameworks (NSFs) - national standards and service models for major care areas and disease groups.
  • NHS Commissioning Board - an independent board to be created as a result of the coalition government’s review of the NHS.
  • NHS Confederation - body representing NHS hospital trusts, primary care trusts, strategic health authorities, and health care. Its members aim to influence health care policy and support health care staff.
  • NICE - National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. An independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health.
  • NMC - Nursing & Midwifery Council. 
  • NPSA - National Patient Safety Agency.
  • Patient Administration System (PAS) - system typically used in hospitals and community service settings containing essential non-clinical data, such as appointment and waiting times.
  • PCT - Primary Care Trust. Currently responsible for commissioning all health care in their community. Coalition government will abolish these as part of plans to reorganise health services. GPs will be given responsibility for commissioning most NHS services, and responsibility for commissioning specialist and tertiary services will pass to a new NHS Commissioning Board.
  • Personal Demographics Service (PDS) - national electronic database of NHS patient details used within health and social care.
  • Primary health care team - team of professional staff including GPs and nurses, attached to general practices, providing a range of healthcare services.
  • Quangos - quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations.
  • Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) - responsible for implementation of national policy at a local level and act as a link between NHS organisations and the Department of Health. The government has stated that there will be no need for SHAs once the independent NHS Commissioning Board is established and they will be abolished by 2012.
 
 
 
AGCAS
Written by Ivana Morton-Holmes, AGCAS
Date: 
October 2010
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