WIREDGOV

The NHS Future Forum has published its recommendations to the Government on the modernisation of health and care.

Set up as an independent group in order to ‘pause, listen and reflect’ on the Health and Social Care Bill, the Forum has made 16 key recommendations, including:

• the pace of the proposed changes should be varied so that the NHS implements them only where it is ready to do so

• the Secretary of State for Health should remain ultimately accountable for the NHS

• nurses, specialist doctors and other clinicians must be involved in making local decisions about the commissioning of care – not just GPs – but in doing this the NHS should avoid tokenism, or the creation of a new bureaucracy

• competition should be used to secure greater choice and better value for patients – it should be used not as an end in itself, but to improve quality, promote integration and increase citizens’ rights

• the drive for change in the NHS should not be based on Monitor’s duty to ‘promote’ competition, which should be removed, but on citizens’ power to challenge the local health service when they feel it does not offer meaningful choices or good quality

• all organisations involved in NHS care and spending NHS money should be subject to the same high standards of public openness and accountability.

The Forum’s recommendations will now be considered and responded to by the Government.

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