http://www.kidneypatientguide.org.uk/
We are particularly proud of the Kidney Patient Guide site. Members
of the Balance of Care Group developed it in collaboration with
Cognitive Applications and staff and patients of Wrexham Maelor
Hospital (NE Wales Hospital Trust) following the grant of a ‘Science
on Stage and Screen’ award from the Wellcome Trust.
The site is a patient-focused information site for kidney patients and their carers. It is highly innovative in its approach and has developed a strong and supportive online patient community of over 1800 people from around the world who communicate via the site’s bulletin board. It sets high standards among patient information web sites.
http://www.nao.gov.uk
The independent National Audit Office scrutinises public spending on
behalf of Parliament auditing the accounts of all central government
departments and agencies, as well as a wide range of other public
bodies, and reporting on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness
of their use of public money.
http://www.dh.gov.uk
The Department of Health, responsible for health policy in England,
and whose site gives access to all policy areas and statistics
covering health and social care in England.
http://www.nhs.uk
The NHS gateway website which, in turn, provides links to the sites
of our NHS clients.
http://www.cogapp.com
Our colleagues at Cognitive Applications were the technical partners
in the design of the Kidney Patient Guide website and continue to
support its active bulletin board.
http://www.partnersinpaediatrics.org.uk/
Partners in Paediatrics is
a clinical collaborative in the north English Midlands centred on
Stoke-on-Trent. A version of the Balance of Care model was developed
in conjunction with them for planning paediatric gastroenterology
service capacity.
http://www.paconsulting.com
We collaborated closely with PA Consulting (Ireland) on the project
for the Health Service Executive of Ireland looking at bed usage
across all hospitals with A&E departments.
http://www.hse.ie
The HSE provides health services and social services for the people
of Ireland.
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk
The King’s Fund is a leading UK charitable foundation working for
better health, with a particular focus on London.
http://www.cqc.org.uk
The Commission for Social Care Inspection inspects and reports on
care services and councils to improve social care and stamp out bad
practice.
http://www.telecarealliance.co.uk/index.html
The Balance of Care
Group provides supporting consultancy for the Telecare Alliance
which specialises in consultancy and training in all aspects of
telecare. It has a very useful free ‘telecare news’ alert service.
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/hm
'The Department of Health Policy & Professional Practice' at Keele University (in
Staffordshire, England) is where Paul Forte is a senior lecturer.
This is one of the UK’s longest established health management
centres with a strong record of teaching, research and development
work in the UK and overseas.
http://www.nihes.nl/site
The Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences - based at Erasmus
University, Rotterdam - is a leading European public health whose
mission is to contribute to the identification of determinants of
health and disease, to find factors contributing to the efficiency
of health services and to further develop methods for the
acquisition and interpretation of medical data. Paul Forte is
co-director of an annual short course run by the Institute on
Operational Research Applied to Health Services (course HS07)
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/operational-research
The Clinical Operational Research Unit (CORU) is the leading UK
centre for the application of in a wide range of clinical areas
including cancer, obstetrics, cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery,
primary health care, sexually transmitted diseases, intensive care,
rheumatology and IT.
http://www.management.soton.ac.uk/ORAHS
The Operational Research Applied to Health Services Working Group is
a special interest group under the auspices of EURO (the European
branch of the International Federation of Operational Research
Societies (IFORS). Members of the Balance of Care Group have been
active participants in this group and its annual meetings over many
years. Government organisations we have worked with or who are
important sources of information and policy.