Hot topic search results

Effectiveness bank home page. Opens new window Hot topic search results

You have found 66 entries after clicking the GO button or a search link in a hot topic. Starting with the most recently added or updated entries, the list shows in orange the type of entry, year the original document was published (or if one of our own documents, the year last updated), and the type of file you will download when you click on the title. In blue is the document’s title followed by a brief description.

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STUDY 2020 HTM file
Improving access to care for people who inject drugs: qualitative evaluation of Project ITTREAT – an integrated community hepatitis C service

A UK-based project placed a dedicated full-time hepatitis C nurse into a drug and alcohol treatment service. The experiences of people who inject drugs and attended the service reveal the degree to which this strategy can remove barriers to the infection treatment so crucial to containing the virus.

MATRIX CELL 2020 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell E2: Treatment systems; Generic and cross-cutting issues

Seminal and key studies on local, regional and national systems for effectively and cost-effectively providing treatment. Explores whether payment by results stifles patient-centred practice or stretches services beyond comfort zones, the surprising results of a randomised trial of service-improvement mechanisms, and the multiple answers to how many drinkers should be in treatment. See the remaining four cells in row 2 of the matrix for more on generic features of medical and psychosocial therapies.

HOT TOPIC 2020 HTM file
How many drinkers should be in treatment?

One of our selection of hot topics – important issues which sometimes generate heated debate over the facts or their interpretation. What proportion of England’s problem drinkers might be in treatment, how far does that fall short of the number who should be – and how do we judge ‘should’? The proportion varies to a surprising degree depending on assumptions about who needs treatment.

STUDY 2019 HTM file
Impact of the introduction and withdrawal of financial incentives on the delivery of alcohol screening and brief advice in English primary health care: an interrupted time-series analysis

The clearest impact of financial incentives to screen primary care patients in England was the plummeting screening rate after the incentives were withdrawn. If these results are applicable to England as a whole, over the following 21 months withdrawing the payments resulted in 603,719 fewer patients being screened for risky drinking and 27,439 fewer receiving brief advice.

STUDY 2016 HTM file
Improving the delivery of brief interventions for heavy drinking in primary health care: outcome results of the Optimizing Delivery of Health Care Intervention (ODHIN) five-country cluster randomized factorial trial

The EU-funded ODHIN trial tested eight strategies to promote screening and brief interventions for risky drinking in primary health care units in five European countries. Results suggested that financial incentives were key but were reinforced by training and support.

STUDY 2013 HTM file
Modelling the cost-effectiveness of alcohol screening and brief interventions in primary care in England

Simulation study calculated health care cost savings and benefits for patients in England which make routine GP-based screening and brief advice for excessive drinking look an unmissable bargain, but the key assumptions derived from studies divorced from how interventions would routinely be implemented.

REVIEW 2010 HTM file
Alcohol-use disorders: Preventing the development of hazardous and harmful drinking

In these UK national prevention guidelines, experts prioritised population-wide changes like price rises and outlet restrictions which affect everyone, independent of the choices they make. But in England government prefers to target what they see as the troublesome minority, not the responsible majority.

DOCUMENT 2017 HTM file
Commissioning impact on drug treatment: The extent to which commissioning structures, the financial environment and wider changes to health and social welfare impact on drug misuse treatment and recovery

Based on research, financial data and stakeholder surveys and testimonies, the UK government’s official drug policy advisers warn that without significant efforts to protect investment and quality, in England “loss of funding will result in the dismantling of a drug misuse treatment system that has brought huge improvement to the lives of people with drug and alcohol problems”.

STUDY 2017 HTM file
Impact of financial incentives on alcohol consumption recording in primary health care among adults with schizophrenia and other psychoses: a cross-sectional and retrospective cohort study

UK study of how Quality and Outcomes Framework incentives for primary care boosted alcohol screening among patients with severe mental illness shows what could have happened had the incentives been extended across the entire primary care caseload.

HOT TOPIC 2017 HTM file
‘My GP says I drink too much’: screening and brief intervention

One of our hot topics – important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. In the absence of more or less inescapable impediments to heavy drinking like ramping up the price of cheap alcohol, widespread screening and brief advice have been the great hope for drink-related public health improvements. Patchy effectiveness and poor implementation have led that ambition to be questioned.


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