- Date published
- September 2007
- Pages
- 7
- Download publication [52kb PDF]
This paper sets out The Health Foundation’s response to the Conservative Party’s White Paper on the future of the NHS.
Background
In June 2007 the Conservative Party launched its policy paper, NHS Autonomy and Accountability, Proposals for Legislation. It says that improving the NHS is its number one priority.
The Health Foundation’s response
The Health Foundation is an independent charitable foundation. We’re investing £20 million each year in research and programmes to improve the quality of healthcare across the UK. Our experience enables us to share evidence-based learning to inform health policy and practice.
We welcome the opportunity to respond to the proposals. Our concern is to ensure that the necessary support is provided to make the White Paper’s desired improvements in healthcare a reality. Our response to NHS Autonomy and Accountability therefore covers four areas:
- making the NHS principles real (including support for providers, national measurement, and national standards and regulation)
- Payment by Results
- autonomy in commissioning
- patient choice and patient-centred services.
The paper draws on The Health Foundation’s recent research, including A Quality Chartbook: Patient and Public Experience in the NHS. It makes suggestions based on emerging experience from the Foundation’s wide range of programmes and initiatives promoting leadership and quality.
Conclusions
The paper identifies six key aspects of infrastructure and support that are needed to bring about sustained improvements in healthcare quality:
- support for providers and healthcare professionals to develop skills to improve quality of care
- putting national clinical outcome measures at the centre of the system so that patients, commissioners, providers and professionals know when care is not of high quality
- clear national standards and best practice to ensure equity of provision nationwide
- a payment system that supports quality rather than cost containment
- commissioners who can use a range of different tools and techniques to invest in providers that actively promote quality improvement and better patient outcomes
- a focus on developing self-care, and support so that healthcare professionals have the skills to facilitate this.
