Feedback required from BGS members in England on the STP process so far…

Professor Tahir Masud is President-Elect of the BGS and heads the Clinical Gerontology Research Unit at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. 

Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) were announced as part of NHS England’s NHS planning guidance 2016/17 – 2020/21. These documents created a new funding environment for NHS providers that aims to achieve collaboration by bringing together commissioners and providers of health and care services to support delivery of the NHS Five Year Forward View. To receive funding providers have to demonstrate that they have worked with each other, commissioners, the public and local authorities to create plans that will address the three gaps identified in the Forward View: 1) health and wellbeing, 2) care and quality and 3) finance and efficiency. 

Suffering in silence: A global epidemic

This blog is the collaborative work of BGS President-Elect Prof Tahir Masud and his team Aneesha Chauhan, final year medical student, University of Oxford and Sanja Thompson consultant physician, Geratology department, University of Oxford.

Everyone has experienced loneliness. Acutely, it is a transient, often mild experience that is relieved by meaningful social interaction. However, we are living in an epidemic of chronic loneliness. More than three quarters of GPs in the UK say they see between 1 and 5 lonely people a day. Furthermore, recent prevalence data revealed that 30% of the elderly are “sometimes lonely” with 9% suffering from severe loneliness. It is being increasingly recognised that loneliness is a pathological state, with its own epidemiology, risk factors, presentations, and increased mortality and morbidity.