The NHS White Paper, Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS, sets out the Coalition Government's long-term vision for the future of the NHS.
The vision builds on the core values and principles of the NHS - a comprehensive service, available to all, free at the point of use, based on need, not ability to pay. It sets out how the NHS will:
The White Paper was published on 12 July 2010 with a deadline for responses of 11 October 2010. The results of the consultations helped to develop the Health Bill which is now going through Parliament.
NHS East Midlands' response to the White Paper.
Details of live consultations can be found on the DH website.
Closed Consultations
NHS Listening Exercise and
NHS Future Forum
On 6 April, Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley launched the Government’s listening exercise on NHS modernisation.
The Government is taking the opportunity of a natural break in the passage of the Health Bill to pause, listen, reflect and improve. Over an 8-week period, there will be a series of events, led by the NHS Future Forum, to hear from a range of people working right at the frontline, and to speak directly to those who lead the NHS. By June, the Government will decide how to take forward the Bill in a way that reflects what has been heard.
Listening Exercise Themes
The Government wants to hear what people have to say on all aspects of the changes, and particularly across the four themes within the Listening Exercise:
How can we best ensure that competition and patient choice drives NHS improvement?
How can we make the NHS properly accountable to the public, and make sure that patient involvement is at the heart of its decision making?
How can we ensure that advice and leadership from NHS staff themselves on improving services and tackling patient needs are at the heart of the health service?
How can we make sure that NHS staff in the future have the right skills to meet changing patient needs? Are the arrangements we have proposed for education and training the best ones to ensure this?
NHS Future Forum
To lead the NHS Listening Exercise, a group of patient representatives, clinicians and others from the health field, including frontline staff has been assembled. This group, the NHS Future Forum, is driving the process of engagement with staff, patients and communities over the coming weeks.
The group is chaired by Professor Steve Field, practising GP in Birmingham and immediate past Chair of Council at the Royal College of General Practitioners
The group numbers 44 members, largely made up of frontline professionals, both clinicians and managers
The Forum has assigned a lead to each of the four themes of the Listening Exercise:
The Forum will feedback what it has heard to the Government at the end of May.
This will inform changes and improvements to the legislation as it passes through Parliament, as well as to the wider implementation process.
Beyond May, the NHS Future Forum will continue to listen and advise on other non-legislative aspects of the modernisation plans, implementation of the changes, and the design of any secondary legislation.
Members of the public are invited to post their comments, either publicly or submit them privately at http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/
Closing date - 31 March 2011. Published 20 December 2010.
Developing the Healthcare Workforce sets out proposals to establish a new framework for developing the healthcare workforce and seeks views on the systems and processes that will be needed to support it. The final date for responses is 31st March 2011, but earlier expressions of view would be helpful.
A summary of the response to this consultation will be made available before or alongside any further action, such as laying legislation before Parliament, and will be placed on the Department of Health consultations website. This will occur after the consultation is completed on 31 March 2011.
Closing date - 8 March 2011. Published 30 November 2010.
‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People: Our strategy for public health in England’ sets out the Government's long-term vision for the future of public health in England. The plans outlined will transform public health and for the first time create a ‘wellness’ service: 'Public Health England', to meet today’s health challenges.
In a move to strengthen both national and local leadership, directors of public health, employed by local authorities and jointly appointed with Public Health England, will lead on driving health improvement locally. Local authorities will deploy resources to improve health and well-being in their communities using ring-fenced health improvement budgets allocated by the Department of Health.
Closing date - 14 January 2011. Published 18 October 2010
Liberating the NHS: An Information Revolution consultation is aimed at NHS staff, GPs, local authorities, professional bodies and representative organisations, patients and the public. It is seeking their views on proposals to transform the way information is collected, analysed and used by the NHS and adult social care services – moving away from ‘a culture where information belongs to health and care organisations to one where it belongs to patients and service users’.
Closing date - 14 January 2011. Published 18 October 2010
Liberating the NHS: Greater choice and control consultation tells us more about the government’s plans to give people greater choice and control over their healthcare and asks for views from the public, patients, carers and other stakeholders. It embraces the principle of shared decision making between healthcare staff, patients and carers and ‘no decision about me, without me’. The results of the consultation will help to develop further proposals for implementing greater choice and control.
Closing date—11 October 2010. Published: 19/07/2010
The White Paper sets out how the Secretary of State for Health will hold the NHS Commissioning Board to account for delivering better health outcomes through a national NHS Outcomes Framework. The DH has launched a full consultation and engagement process on how we should develop the NHS Outcomes Framework.
Closing date—11 October 2010. Published: 22/07/2010
This consultation builds on the proposals in the White Paper to increase local involvement in decision-making in health. This will be achieved by local authorities:
- having a stronger role in supporting patient choice and ensuring local people can have their say
- taking on local public health improvement functions
- promoting more effective NHS, social care and public health commissioning arrangements.
Closing date—11 October 2010. Published: 22/07/2010
The White Paper sets out proposals for putting local consortia of GP practices in charge of commissioning services to best meet the needs of local people, supported by an independent NHS Commissioning Board. DH is now launching a consultation and engagement process on how we should implement these proposals.
Closing date—11 October 2010. Published: 26/07/2010
This document further outlines proposals on foundation trusts and the establishment of Monitor as an independent economic regulator for health and adult social care. It seeks views on specific consultation questions.
Arms length body review
A review of arms length bodies (ALBs) has taken place. The changes outlined in the report will reduce the number of health ALBs from eighteen to between eight and ten; they are expected to deliver savings of over £180m by 2014/15.
