Plans announced by the government in a White Paper on Monday (12th July) outline radical changes to the way the NHS in England operates. GPs are to take responsibility for commissioning, hospitals are being encouraged to move outside of the NHS and operate as social enterprises, patients are to be given more information and choice and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are to be axed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10557996
Health secretary Andrew Lansley has said that with most commissioning to be done by GP-led consortia, there is “no job left for PCTs’. SHAs will be abolished as statutory bodies during 2012/2013 and PCTs from April 2013 meaning that tens of thousands of their staff will lose their jobs over the next four years.
http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/policy/sha-and-pct-jobs-crisis-ahead/5017193.article
Responsibility for public health is being passed to local authorities, with directors of public health to be given health improvement funds in proportion to their relative local population health need. Councils are set to supplant PCTs in the planning of NHS services and could be contracted by GPs to help them commission. Several senior NHS leaders have seen these steps as a move to more integrated health and social care service provision.
Responsibility for overseeing commissioner and provider strategy at a national and regional level is to be split immediately as new managing directors of commissioning and of provider development are hired.
The NHS has set aside £1.7bn this year for reorganisation costs to help GPs take over budgets from NHS managers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10647910
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Monitor are to operate a ‘joint-license’, with Monitor to become the economic regulator of all health and social care providers by April 2012.
