White Paper 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS'
On 12 July, the coalition government released its Health White Paper, providing the framework for primary and secondary health legislation to reform the NHS and achieve a 45% reduction in administrative costs.
Providing patients with more power to choose their providers (in part through enhanced quality outcomes information about hospitals and consultants) and devolving power to healthcare professionals to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and costs are central components. With these two themes forming its organising principle for health reform, the White Paper is divided into four sections:
- Putting patients and the public first;
- Improving healthcare outcomes;
- Autonomy, accountability, and democratic legitimacy; and
- Cutting bureaucracy and improving efficiency.
Some significant policies include:
- Handing commissioning power to General Practice Consortia, with the planned elimination of Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts by April 2013.
- Patients able to register with any GP practice regardless of where they live
, with greater control over their health records, and access to 24/7 urgent care. - A new consumer 'champion' will be created within the Care Quality Commission, called HealthWatch England. Local Involvement Networks (LINks) will become the local HealthWatch.
- The NHS will be held to account against clinically credible and evidence-based outcome measures, derived from National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) standards, rather than process targets. Care for people with long term conditions will be improved through pathway redesign.
- NHS trusts will become or be part of a foundation trust, free from the state's operational control and not subject to the Secretary of State's direction. Monitor will have an enhanced role in regulating all providers.
- The creation of a new Public Health Service to integrate existing health improvement and protection entities and functions. The Government will ring-fence the public health budget. PCT responsibilities for local health
improvement will transfer to local authorities, who will employ the director of Public Health jointly with the Public Health Service. - Local authorities will take on the function of joining up the commissioning of local NHS services, social care, and health improvement via Health and Well Being Boards, which will become statutory. The statutory functions of Health Overview and Scrutiny (e.g. undertaking a scrutiny role in relation to major service redesign) transfer to
Health & Well Being Board s . - £15-20 billion of efficiency savings by 2014 to reinvest in improving quality and outcomes.
The Department of Health has launched four consultations around this white paper:
- Transparency in Outcomes: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_117583
- Increasing Democratic Legitimacy in Health: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_117586
- Commissioning for Patients: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_117587
- Regulating Health Care Providers: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_117782
Everyone is encouraged to have their say in these proposals by responding to the consultations prior to the closing date of 11 October 2010.
A related report has also been published to radically delayer and simplify the number of NHS bodies and reduce the Department of Health's own NHS functions. It identifies which quangos will be abolished and how the functions of those that remain will be streamlined:
- Report of the Arms-Length Bodies Review: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_117691
Related links
Health and Well-Being Partnership is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Contact details
Oxfordshire Partnership
County Hall
New Road
OX1 1ND
Tel: 01865 323967
Fax: 01865 783363
Email: Oxfordshire Partnership
