The coalition government has published its plans for the NHS, merging the policy commitments of the two parties.
The document, called The coalition: our plans for government, re-iterates the Tories commitment to marketisation of the NHS, giving patients more choice of health provider, and cutting administration costs.
It also supports the formation of an independent NHS board overseeing aspects of the NHS. And further development of NICE, and the regulators the Care Quality Commission and Monitor.
The commitments include:
• Raising quality through much greater involvement of independent and voluntary providers.
• Giving every patient the power to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards, within NHS prices.
• Publishing detailed data about the performance of healthcare providers online, “so everyone will know who is providing a good service and who is falling behind”.
• Putting patients “in charge of making decisions” about their care, including control of their health records.
• Creating a Cancer Drugs Fund to enable patients to access the cancer drugs their doctors think will help them, paid for using money saved by the NHS through the pledge to stop the rise in employer National Insurance contributions from April 2011.
• Reforming NICE and move to a system of value-based pricing, “so that all patients can access the drugs and treatments their doctors think they need”.
• Prioritising dementia research within the health research and development budget.
• Stopping foreign healthcare professionals working in the NHS unless they have passed robust language and competence tests.
• Giving front-line staff “more control of their working environment”.
• Establishing an independent NHS board to allocate resources and provide commissioning guidelines.
There are also significant commitments in primary care including the renegotiation of the GP contract with a view to getting GPs more involved in out-of-hours care, scrapping practice boundaries and having PCT boards partly constituted by directly elected members.
At the document launch, David Cameron said coalition health policy was “more radical, more de-centralising” than either party had planned.
Commenting on the plans, BMA chairman, Dr Hamish Meldrum, said: “Doctors want to work constructively with the new government and we are pleased that today’s plans prioritise clinical engagement with the medical profession - it is essential that this dialogue is meaningful and does not just pay lip-service to the notion of involving clinicians in proposals for the health service.
“Despite some reassurances about funding, the NHS faces a challenging time ahead with considerable funding pressures and any plans the government has to make for efficiency savings should be based on clear clinical evidence and involve doctors at all levels to ensure that quality of care for patients is protected.”
The BMA wants to see more detail before commenting on specific policies.
Dr Jennifer Dixon, director of thinktank Nuffield Trust, said: “We welcome moves to provide a stronger voice for local communities on the boards of local PCT. But much-needed changes to local health services, particularly those that reduce avoidable and costly care delivered in hospitals, must not be derailed because they are unpopular. Too much care is delivered in hospitals when it could be prevented and we now need radical changes to the way patient care is commissioned, organised and delivered outside hospitals.”
Read a full list of the commitments.
Tags: Health policy, Patient choice
