The Health Foundation submission of evidence to The Public Bill Committee on the Health & Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Date: June 2011

Download: The Health Foundation submission of evidence to The Public Bill Committee on the Health & Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Background

On 14 June 2011 the Health Secretary announced changes to the Health and Social Care Bill based on the recommendations from the NHS Future Forum.

Minister of State for the Department of Health Simon Burns, moved a motion in the House of Commons on Tuesday 21 June 2011 to recommit certain clauses of the Health and Social Care Bill to the Public Bill Committee for further consideration.

Following the re-committal of the Health and Social Care Bill the Public Bill Committee is calling for written evidence regarding matters related to those clauses that have been recommitted.

The Health Foundation’s response

For the NHS to be a first class health service, we need people to be given the right support so that they can be in control of their own health and healthcare decisions.

The NHS needs to transform the way it helps people to become involved in their own care and supports people to make choices.

In order to embed the principle of ‘No decision about me without me’ into the daily experience of patients and their families, an essential first step will be some specific changes to the Health and Social Care Bill.

We are recommending the following changes to the Health and Social Care Bill relating to the creation of new duties of patient involvement and patient choice for the NHS Commissioning Board and commissioning consortia:

• Creation of a separate duty of individual patient involvement in decisions about their own treatment. This should be expressed as a section in its own right, not a sub-section of the duty about reducing health inequalities. And a clear distinction should be made between the current duty of collective involvement in decisions about provision of services to the community and this new separate duty of individual patient involvement.
• Inclusion of a new duty of patient choice. This should also be expressed as a section in its own right, not a sub-section of the duty about reducing health inequalities.
• Inclusion of an explicit definition of choice on the face of the Bill. The Health Foundation’s definition of choice, which is cited in the NHS Future Forum’s report 'Choice and Competition, Delivering Real Choice', is:
  • Choice of services to support healthy living
  • Choice of provider and the way in which care is provided
  • Choice of treatment including self-management support.
• These new and separate duties of individual patient involvement and patient choice should use language which is as strong as lawyers advise is practical in order to enshrine the duty as mandatory, rather than discretionary.

We are urging the Committee to support amendments 68, 69, 70 and 109, 110, 111 tabled by the Rt Hon Simon Burns MP, Minister of State for Health. These will create new duties on both the NHS Commissioning Board and commissioning consortia as to patient choice and to promote involvement of each patient. We do however maintain that we would like to see a definition of patient choice on the face of the Bill.