Department of Health

New Health and Care Sytem document

The DH has produced new guidance entitled ‘The health and care system explained’.

The new health and care system will deliver the ambitions set out in the Health and Social Care Act. NHS England, Public Health England, the NHS Trust Development Authority and Health Education England will take on their full range of responsibilities.

Locally, clinical commissioning groups – made up of doctors, nurses and other professionals – will buy services for patients, while local councils formally take on their new roles in promoting public health. Health and wellbeing boards will bring together local organisations to work in partnership and Healthwatch will provide a powerful voice for patients and local communities.

These changes are about giving local communities and patients more say in the care they receive and doctors and nurses more freedom to shape services to meet people’s needs, to improve the quality of the support, care and treatment we all receive.

For example:

• greater direct control over planning and commissioning means that doctors, nurses and other health and care professionals can better shape what kind of support, care and treatment is available locally
• more emphasis on preventing illness and helping people stay independent in older age or disability means we can improve everyone’s long term health and wellbeing
• more power devolved to local groups and organisations means that communities now have more influence than ever over how their local health services support them
• opening up to a wider range of health care providers, including independent and charitable organisations, means that there will be more choice for patients and greater pressure on services to improve

The document can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-health-and-care-system-explained

Transforming primary care: Safe, proactive, personalised care for those who need it most (policy paper)

‘Transforming Primary Care’ sets out plans for more proactive, personalised and joined up care, including the Proactive Care Programme, providing the 800,000 patients with the most complex health and care needs with:

• a personal care and support plan
• a named accountable GP
• a professional to coordinate their care
• same-day telephone consultations

The plan builds on the role of primary care in keeping patients well and independent. It explains how professionals across the healthcare system can work together to transform care to become more proactive and tailored to patients’ individual need.

Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/304139/Transforming_primary_care.pdf