UK prime minister to rein in health reforms
pharmafile | June 8, 2011 | News story | | Health and Social Care Bill, NHS reforms
The UK prime minister David Cameron has put forward five major changes to the government’s beleaguered Health and Social Care Bill.
Cameron has been forced to water down the role of GPs and competition in the NHS in England, while giving more commissioning power to hospital doctors and nurses.
Originally the reform programme was set to abolish primary care trusts, the current commissioners of the NHS budget, and hand this responsibility over to GP consortia by 2013.
But this has met with much opposition and after considerable pressure, Cameron has scaled back the role of GPs to allow hospital doctors and nurses sit within the GP consortia when commissioning.
In addition to this, newly created ‘clinical senates’ will be introduced, consisting of senior medical professionals that will oversee integration of NHS services across England.
The timescales for the change have also been extended, and the 2013 target has effectively been revoked – Cameron said consortia will now only commission “when they are ready”.
The role of Monitor will also be watered down and will now have a ‘duty to promote integration’, rather than ensure competition of services.
This had been the most controversial element to the Bill, and represents a major U-turn on the part of the government, but one that has been a long time coming.
The role of competition will now only be introduced when it ‘benefits patient care and choice’, Cameron said.
“We have listened and engaged and not just heard what people have said, but we are going to reflect it in what we are going to do,” Cameron said in his speech yesterday.
“There are real changes being made to these health reforms to reflect the concerns of patients, doctors and nurses so we get that right.
“We will modernise the NHS – because changing the NHS today is the only way to protect the NHS for tomorrow,” he concluded.
Cameron ‘jumps the gun’ on concessions
Cameron’s speech comes after an eight-week ‘pause’ in the Health Bill, where an independent Future Forum was set up to report on the problems the health service had with Bill.
He was speaking ahead of the Forum’s ‘Delivering real choice’ report on the reforms that is due next week, which will be the basis for amending the Bill.
In his blog one of the report’s authors, Sir Steven Bubb, chief executive of the association of chief executive organisations, said he was disappointed that the government had jumped the gun on announcing the changes.
“Why can’t they actually wait till our Report is out,” he wrote. “It’s only a matter of days. It must make our work look less relevant when they can’t wait.”
He did however welcome the prime minister’s speech and the changes he offered, but said the Forum’s report would offer “more radical proposals that will take this debate forward further”.
Ben Adams
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