“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease” (William Osler)

Ensuring England is one of the best countries in Europe at helping people with long term conditions to live healthily and independently was the driver behind the Long Term Conditions conference which took place in January at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre.

Healthcare professionals from across the UK gathered at this annual event, which was sponsored by leading organisations in this sector, including the British Heart Foundation, the main sponsor of the conference.

The opening keynote address was delivered by Bob Ricketts, Director of Commissioning Support Services, Strategy and market Development for NHS England. The focus of this presentation was delivering service transformation through commissioning and looked at two main areas; outcome-based population commissioning and value-based commissioning.

This was followed by a thought-provoking presentation given by Simon Gillespie the Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation; also the main sponsors of the conference. Simon challenged the attendees to explore how the care system can properly exploit the creativity, innovation, knowledge, skills, drive, determination, patient-focus and public accountability of the charity sector in helping to deliver for people with long-term conditions.

Dr Mark Davies then gave a presentation which focused on using quality information and technology to plan services and make informed decisions. Building confidence in the use of information and providing information to support better care were main themes running throughout this presentation.  

Bev Matthews and Dr Jamie Day from NHS England then took to the stage. They focused upon driving improvement with a long-term condition year of care funding model. Dr Martin McShane, Director (Domain 2) for NHS England identified key areas for action to support the overall mission of providing high quality care for all and illustrated the tools and levers of the Quality Framework which will be used to achieve this. He ended with a final thought that “the good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease” (William Osler).

The afternoon conference programme was streamed, giving attendees the opportunity to choose which area they wanted to focus on. Topics under discussion ranged from improving diagnosis and care for patient s with respiratory disease to clinical leadership in long-term condition management in the community.