Change at centre of NHS plan
pharmafile | April 12, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Mid Staffs, NHS, putting patients first
The shadow of Mid Staffs looms long over NHS England’s new three-year business plan, with a move towards fundamental change firmly at the heart of the document, called Putting Patients First.
The government has been making noises about the need for a ‘culture of compassion’ in the NHS, in the wake of Robert Francis QC’s report into scandalous treatment of patients at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The Department of Health pledged “a renewed focus on putting patients at the centre of everything we do” following Francis’ 290 recommendations on issues such as improving basic standards, creating more transparency, increasing compassion in care and strengthening leadership.
“The only acceptable legacy of the Francis report is that the NHS changes as a result of its findings,” the preamble to Putting Patients First says.
Mid Staffs demonstrates the “stark realities when standards of care fall woefully short”, it goes on.
“Recent events have demonstrated the need for constant vigilance to ensure consistently high standards of care across the NHS and to pick up possible failures at an early stage,” Professor Malcolm Grant, chair of NHS England, said.
“This is why we have placed quality care at the heart of everything we do,” he added.
The plan runs from 2013-14 to 2015-16, although it will be reviewed this autumn and updated next spring, the government says.
Feedback from patients, their families and NHS staff is going to be given weight in the plan, which sets out 11 points on a so-called ‘scorecard’ which the organisation should be working towards:
- Satisfied patients
- Motivated, positive NHS staff
- Preventing people from dying prematurely
- Enhancing quality of life for people with long-term conditions
- Helping people to recover from episodes of ill health or following injury
- Ensuring people have a positive experience of care
- Treating and caring for people in a safe environment and protecting them from avoidable harm
- Promoting equality and reducing inequalities in health outcomes
- NHS Constitution rights and pledges
- Becoming an excellent organisation
- High quality financial management
The first two of these will be covered by the launch this month of the government’s NHS friends and family test, to be updated monthly, in which patients will be asked whether they would recommend the wards and A&E departments they experienced to those closest to them.
Eight areas will be concentrated on to help ensure that the 11 points in the scorecard are met, including support for commissioning, customer service and developing leadership.
These are:
- supporting, ensuring and developing the commissioning system
- direct commissioning
- emergency preparedness
- partnership for quality
- strategy, research and innovation for outcomes and growth
- clinical and professional leadership
- world class customer service
- developing commissioning support
NHS England’s earlier planning guidance, called ‘Everyone Counts’, was issued last December.
Adam Hill
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