Monitoring access to nationally commissioned services in England.

BACKGROUND: For over 20 years, the National Health Service in England has run a system of national planning for highly specialised healthcare services. The aim is to ensure that very rare diseases are treated, and very complex procedures performed, in only a few centres, each of which maintains a volume high enough to maintain excellent outcomes. The commissioning strategy for the provision of these national services in England is strongly centralising. Centralising does however create a duty to ensure that patients distant from the treatment centres are not thereby disadvantaged. The commissioning process ensures sufficient capacity to treat the entire national caseload of clinically eligible patients. The aim of this paper is to apply the Systematic Component of Variation (SCV) to study access to services commissioned by the National Specialised Commissioning Team (NSCT) in England. The discussion focuses on the potential explanations for a high level of systematic variation between areas and on the use of the SCV to support the monitoring and development of these nationally commissioned services. METHOD: Data from nationally commissioned services for the year ending 2011 were received from treating hospital. Mid year age and sex appropriate population estimates were then obtained to provide denominator data. Data were analysed at the geographic level of strategic health authority. RESULTS: 30 services met all requirements for analysis. There is no apparent relationship between SCV and number of locations from which the service is provided. On inspection high SCV is more common among recently commissioned services. DISCUSSION: The importance of the SCV lies in its ability to support the development of highly specialised services. Once the random variation has been accounted for, the reasons for a systematic component can be explored. While no absolute cut- off exists, the SCV can be used to gauge and explore services that are potentially not covering the national caseload. The reason for a high SCV may not be immediately apparent; thus the SCV can aid those responsible for commissioning the service to seek potential explanations and identify improvements. CONCLUSION: We have reviewed spatial variation in access to a set of highly specialised services in England. On inspecting our results, we believe that they suggest that equity of access can usually be achieved at about five years after establishing a service, and this is not dependent, within the geography of England, on the number of centres designated.

The adaptation of health technology assessment reports: identification of the need for, and development of, a toolkit to aid the process.

OBJECTIVES: Europe has many health technology assessment (HTA) agencies, each producing their own HTA reports. Adapting HTA reports for different contexts could reduce the need for multiple reports on the same health technology with resultant saving of time and resources. This study aims to examine and understand the process of adaptation, and to develop a toolkit that would help the adaptation of reports produced by other countries. METHODS: The methods used were a review of the literature; a survey of twenty-nine European HTA organizations, two rounds of a Delphi survey, a face-to-face meeting of twenty-one European network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) representatives, iterative rounds of review, and two rounds of quality assurance testing (termed applicability testing). RESULTS: Descriptions of previous examples of adaptation in the literature are sparse. Most respondents had previous experience in adapting reports, and all believed that adaptation was useful, and there was the ability to benefit from the use of a toolkit to aid in the process. EUnetHTA Partners developed and tested an adaptation toolkit. The toolkit is composed of a series of checklists and resources that identify or clarify the relevance, reliability, and transferability of data and information from existing reports. CONCLUSIONS: Consensus of opinion from twenty-nine European organizations/networks has indicated that the adaptation of HTA reports would be desirable and beneficial. A toolkit was developed to help with the adaptation of HTA reports produced in other settings. This collection of resources is available for use by all HTA agencies and can be accessed at: http://www.eunethta.net/upload/WP5/EUnetHTA_HTA_Adaptation_Toolkit_October08.pdf.

The health technology assessment adaptation toolkit: description and use.

OBJECTIVES: Adapting health technology assessment (HTA) reports for different contexts could reduce the need for multiple reports on the same health technology with resultant saving of time and resources. This article describes an instrument, the adaptation toolkit, which has been developed to aid in the process of adaptation of HTA reports. METHODS: The toolkit was developed by a partnership of HTA agencies and networks from across Europe. The role of the toolkit is to guide the user through the process of selecting possible relevant material from these report(s), assessing the relevance, reliability, and transferability of the material, and adapting it for the desired context. RESULTS: The adaptation toolkit has been developed, it comprises a collection of resources that help the user assess whether data and information in existing HTA reports should and could be adapted for their own setting. The toolkit contains two sections: a preliminary speedy sifting section and the main toolkit. The main toolkit includes five domains: (i) technology use and development, (ii) safety, (iii) effectiveness (including efficacy), (iv) economic evaluation, and (v) organizational aspects. Legal, ethical, and social aspects are beyond the scope of the toolkit. The toolkit is designed for the adaptation of evidence synthesis rather than primary research. CONCLUSIONS: The completed current version of the toolkit contains checklists and resources to aid in the adaptation of HTA reports. This collection of resources is available for use by all HTA agencies and can be accessed at: http://www.eunethta.net/upload/WP5/EUnetHTA_HTA_Adaptation_Toolkit_October08.pdf..

Monovalent cation leaks in human red cells caused by single amino-acid substitutions in the transport domain of the band 3 chloride-bicarbonate exchanger, AE1.

We identified 11 human pedigrees with dominantly inherited hemolytic anemias in both the hereditary stomatocytosis and spherocytosis classes. Affected individuals in these families had an increase in membrane permeability to Na and K that is particularly marked at 0 degrees C. We found that disease in these pedigrees was associated with a series of single amino-acid substitutions in the intramembrane domain of the erythrocyte band 3 anion exchanger, AE1. Anion movements were reduced in the abnormal red cells. The 'leak' cation fluxes were inhibited by SITS, dipyridamole and NS1652, chemically diverse inhibitors of band 3. Expression of the mutated genes in Xenopus laevis oocytes induced abnormal Na and K fluxes in the oocytes, and the induced Cl transport was low. These data are consistent with the suggestion that the substitutions convert the protein from an anion exchanger into an unregulated cation channel.