West Lancashire Council for Voluntary Service

The Health White Paper

 The NHS is about to undergo some big changes.  On 12 July 2010, the coalition government published its health white paper ‘Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS’. 

 This reaffirms commitment to the NHS’ core values of a comprehensive service, available to all, free at the point of use, and based on need not ability to pay.  It also describes proposals for the NHS to become a world-class service that is: easy to access, treats people as individuals and offers care that is safe and of the highest quality.

Under the new system, decision making about healthcare services will be given to groups of GPs, called GP commissioning consortia.  GP consortia – who will commission services for their local communities – are likely to emerge from practice-based commissioning clusters.

Consortia will not commission dentistry, pharmacy, primary ophthalmic services, or national and regional specialised services. The commissioning of these services will be the responsibility of a new NHS Commissioning Board. The consortia will take over from primary care trusts, which will be abolished in 2013.

Other changes to the NHS include: all NHS trusts are to become foundation trusts by April 2012; the Care Quality Commission will act as a quality inspectorate across health and social care; public health and health improvement functions will move from primary care trusts to local authorities; a new Public Health Service will lead on public health evidence and analysis; and patients will be given a stronger voice through the introduction of a new consumer champion, HealthWatch.

HealthWatch will be set up as a statutory part of the Care Quality Commission to champion service users and carers across health and social care.  Local Involvement Networks (LINks) will become local HealthWatch bodies and be led by local authorities.

The transfer of commissioning functions to GPs and of public health to local authorities will require careful management over the next three years to ensure that the hand-over of responsibility is smooth and patient care is not affected.  NHS Central Lancashire will play a key role in ensuring this happens, and in supporting the development of the NHS Commissioning Board.

The Department of Health is inviting comments on the white paper. To view the full document and find out more, log onto: www.dh.gov.uk/liberatingthenhs.

Click here to see a diagram of the propsed new structure.

Click here to read a letter from Joe Rafferty, Chief Executive, NHS Central Lancashire

Please click here for a way of saving money by accessing a social tariff and paying less for gas and electricity bills.  A social tariff is a cheaper rate of fuel offered to people who are in ‘fuel poverty’.  Depending on who supplies their fuel and household income people may be able to make savings each month by accessing a social tariff.