DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
News Release (2007/0186) issued by The Government News Network on 4
July 2007
Prime Minister
Gordon Brown and Health Secretary Alan Johnson today announced a
review of the NHS that would advise on how to meet the challenges
of delivering health care over the next decade.
The review will be led by one of the world's leading
surgeons Professor Ara Darzi, the new health Minister, and will
report to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of
State for Health before the 60th anniversary of the NHS in July 2008.
There will be an interim assessment in autumn 2007 to inform the
Comprehensive Spending Review.
This unprecedented review is an opportunity to ensure that the
future of the NHS is clinically led. The review will involve
patients, doctors, nurses and other practitioners, and consider
how best to continue delivering improvements across the NHS.
Professor Darzi will examine how the NHS can provide better
access to safer, high quality care for all, whilst delivering
value for money for taxpayers. He will consider the following challenges:
- Working with NHS staff to ensure that clinical decision-making
is at the heart of the future of the NHS and the pattern of
service delivery
- Improving patient care, including high-quality, joined-up
services for those suffering long-term or life-threatening
conditions, and ensuring patients are treated with dignity in
safe, clean environments
- Delivering more accessible and more convenient care integrated
across primary and secondary providers, reflecting best value for
money and offering services in the most appropriate settings for patients
- In time for the 60th anniversary of the NHS, establishing a
vision for the next decade of the health service which is based
less on central direction and more on patient control, choice and
local accountability and which ensures services are responsive to
patients and local communities
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:
"No institution touches the lives of the British people like
the NHS. It is part of what makes Britain the place it is. Yet no
modern health service that aspires to respond to its
citizen's needs and expectations can afford to stand still. I
believe we need to listen to patients experience and expectations
to forge a new partnership with doctors, nurses and other
practitioners and together produce a way forward that will lead to
an NHS that is changing to be truly patient-led and ever more
responsive to their needs."
"Lasting change can only come from clinicians and staff. We
need to do much more to empower staff, to give them the time with
patients that they need to improve care, to put them in the lead
in developing ideas on improving patient-care, and to respect
their professionalism. The review will undertake an unprecedented
process of engagement and consultation with NHS staff up and down
the country in order to establish how best to involve them in the
change we want to deliver in the NHS."
"In facing up to the challenges of the future, we must
remain true to the values of the NHS - free at the point of use,
open to all, rooted in the British belief in fairness and
compassion. It is on this basis that I think we can move forward
together to create a world-class health service for Britain."
Alan Johnson, Health Secretary said:
"The last ten years have seen huge improvements in the NHS
and thanks to record investment and measures to raise standards,
nine out of ten patients rate their care as good to excellent.
That is a huge achievement by staff. But the NHS cannot stand
still. Rising expectations and new technology mean that the time
is now right to look ahead to the next decade. What was right for
the last decade - top down targets and important but sometimes
difficult reforms - will not be right for the next where more
local decision-making and staff empowerment need to drive the NHS.
"This review will set out the next stage for the NHS and
ensure that our spending priorities reflect the needs of patients
and enable us to establish a new and lasting settlement for a
publicly funded and locally accountable NHS for the decade ahead."
At the end of the Review the Government will consider the case
for a new NHS Constitution.
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The Terms of Reference for the NHS Next Stage Review are
outlined below.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
1. It will build on the progress made in
delivering the vision set out in the NHS plan and the
Government's reform agenda, to identify the way forward for a
21st Century NHS which is clinically-driven, patient-centred and
responsive to local communities.
2. The review should engage with patients, NHS staff and the
public on four critical challenges:
- Working with NHS staff to ensure that clinical decision-making
is at the heart of the future of the NHS and the pattern of
service delivery
- Improving patient care, including high-quality, joined-up
services for those suffering long-term or life-threatening
conditions, and ensuring patients are treated with dignity in
safe, clean environments
- Delivering more accessible and more convenient care integrated
across primary and secondary providers, reflecting best value for
money and offering services in the most appropriate settings for patients
- In time for the 60th anniversary of the NHS, establishing a
vision for the next decade of the health service which is based
less on central direction and more on patient control, choice and
local accountability and which ensures services are responsive to
patients and local communities
3. The review should consider the case for a constitution of the
NHS as the basis of a sustainable and lasting settlement that
meets these challenges, enhances local accountability, secures
value for money and protects the fundamental values that the NHS
has always embodied.
4. The review should help support local patients, staff and the
public in making the changes they need and want in their local NHS
and make recommendations to the Prime Minister, Secretary of State
for Health and Chancellor on how the NHS can best meet these
challenges whilst delivering a publicly funded, comprehensive,
affordable, high-quality service on the basis of need and not
ability to pay. It will report by June 2008 with an interim report
in October 2007.
Richmond House 79 Whitehall London SW1A 2NS
Telephone: (Dept
of Health) 0207 210-3000