Consultation on the White Paper: have your say
The NHS White Paper, Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS, sets out the Coalition Government's long-term vision for the future of the NHS.
The vision builds on the core values and principles of the NHS - a comprehensive service, available to all, free at the point of use and based on need, not the ability to pay. It sets out how the NHS will:
- put patients at the heart of everything it does.
- focus on continuously improving those things that really matter to patients - the outcome of their healthcare.
- empower and liberate clinicians to innovate, with the freedom to focus on improving healthcare services.
There are four supporting consultation papers on which the Department of Health is seeking your views.
- Commissioning for patients. The White Paper sets out proposals for putting local consortia of GP practices in charge of commissioning services that will best meet the needs of local people, supported by an independent national NHS Commissioning Board.
- Local democratic legitimacy in health. This consultation builds on the proposals in the White Paper to increase local involvement in decision-making in health. This will be achieved by local authorities having a stronger role in supporting patient choice and ensuring local people can have their say; taking on local public health improvement functions; and promoting more effective NHS, social care and public health commissioning arrangements.
- Transparency in outcomes: a framework for the NHS. The White Paper sets out how the Secretary of State for Health will hold the NHS Commissioning Board to account for delivering better health outcomes through a national NHS Outcomes Framework.
- Regulating healthcare providers. This document further outlines proposals on foundation trusts and the establishment of Monitor as an independent economic regulator for health and adult social care.
There is also a Review of the Arm’s Length Bodies (ALB’s) which is also open for consultation. The changes outlined in this report will reduce the number of health ALBs from eighteen to between eight and ten; this is expected to deliver savings of over £180m by 2014/15.
The White Paper was published in July and the deadline for responses is October 5 2010. The supporting consultation papers have a deadline for responses of 11 October 2010. The results of the consultations will help develop the Health Bill which will go before Parliament later this year. This is our opportunity to influence the implementation of these wide-ranging reforms, so send your feedback to the Department of Health by e-mailing nhswhitepaper@dh.gsi.gov.uk or writing to White Paper Team, Room 601, Department of Health, 79 Whitehall, London SW1A 2NS.
To read the White Paper and the consultation documents mentioned above, visit www.dh.gov.uk/liberatingthenhs.