The Health and Social Care Bill 2011 - Essay Example

Number] NHS Changes Proposed in the Health and Social Care Bill and Their Effects The Health and Social Care Bill 2011 is the proposed healthcare reform bill that was presented for approval at the House of Commons in January 2011. It has been widely believed that once passed, the bill will become the most extensive measure of reorganizing and restructuring the National Health Service in England. There are some major steps proposed in the bill regarding the change in the structure of NHS, like abolishing the Primary care Trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) of NHS and creation of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). In case of abolishment of these groups, around £60 to £80 billion would be transferred to the general practitioners GPs in England. Since most of the proposals of the bill were not discussed and included in the May 2010 Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition agreement the bill has been regarded as controversial issue of England (Taylor 1; Mulholland 1). The bill faces criticism and opposition from different groups of people who expressed and concerns regarding the reforms introduced in the bill (Mithran 10; Henwood 6). The listening exercise was conducted by the government in April 2011 after which the bill was sent for scrutiny in the House of Lords (Lipley 4). The bill intends to bring some major transformational changes within the structure and organization of NHS in England that is an important point of concern for NHS and it is expected that these reforms will have very strong impact upon the issues and problems associated with NHS at present. The bill clarifies that there are several important reasons to bring modernization within NHS rather allowing the things to proceeds in the usual manner. There are some key issues and problems identified within NHS to provide background for the reforms proposed in the bill. At first, the demand and treatment cost of the healthcare is considerably increasing in the country that is eventually enhancing pressure upon NHS as well. The health problems of population are rapidly growing with each passing day and there are several sophisticated and expensive options available for the treatment. It has been estimated that the cost of the medicine is growing by £600 m per year (Elmhirst 11). It has been realized that NHS is the world leader is providing public healthcare services but still there are some very important areas of healthcare where NHS fails to provide effective services to the people, as compared with the healthcare services of other European countries (White 62). The improvement in the services of NHS will enable to safe thousands of lives per year in England due to which the changes are inevitable to NHS. The state of funding finances is also an important problem area of NHS despite the provision of NHS budget from the government. In order to address these issues, there are several important changes proposed in the bill to transform NHS. It was demonstrated that the health and social care bill is basically meant to improve the services of NHS because, in order to fulfill the needs and growing challenges of the healthcare situation of England, it is imperative to make some structural changes within NHS. The bill suggests that the modernizing of the NHS is necessary to deal with the problems of healthcare arising today to assure that these problems will not become crisis for the nation and NHS tomorrow. The bill puts the clinicians at the center of the commissioning and also proposes to free up the providers to innovate and empower the patients. This step has been suggested to focus upon the public health from a different and better perspective. The provisions of the bill are based upon five major themes that demonstrate the main objectives of the bills. The first important objective of the bill is to strengthen the commissioning of NHS service. The bill also aims to increase the democratic accountability and public voice within NHS. The bill put forwards the proposal for liberating the NHS service provisions and strengthening the public healthcare services (Great Britain: Law Commission, 2011). These themes are directed towards the objective of transforming the current structure of NHS in order to address and resolve the problems and complains associated with current national health services (Department of Health 1). Through the bill the government has expressed its intentions to make NHS more responsive, efficient and accountable. The 20 years long NHS reforms have been kept in view while formulating the prepositions of the current bill (HM Government 226). The bill proposed clinically led commissioning in order to empower the NHS professionals to improve the health services for the benefits of the patients, as well as communities (Great Britain: Law Commission, 2011). The political interference would be reduced from NHS and clinicians would become able to make decisions regarding the public health service. It is proposed that most of the NHS services could be commissioned by the clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) (Walshe and Ham 1). These groups would be led by the general practitioners GPs because there are suitable for this responsibility on the basis of their understanding and dealing with the needs of the patients and local communities. The previous approach to GP-led commissioning, including practice based commissioning, would be replaced with the universal system involving all the practices. The budget would be held by the CCGs with the authority to reinvest the saving for generating patient care. The autonomous NHS commissioning Board will be responsible to develop and support the capable CCGs to bring best value for the public investment (Department of Health 14). In this way, the CCGs would be responsible for commissioning health service and meeting the reasonable local health needs. The Board and CCGs would also be allocated with some duties that were not applicable to PCTs or SHAs like promoting NHS constitution, improving the service quality of NHS, increasing patients involvement, focusing more upon research and innovation and eliminating the inequalities. The board would be liable to assure the effective system of CCGs by evaluating and monitoring it through set criteria. The overall budget for CCGs. would be set by the Secretary of State (Great Britain National Audit Office 6). Through these reforms, the identified problem of finance arrangement and health service quality are expected to be resolved (Health Committee 28). The bill also proposes certain measures to facilitate the providers to innovate services for better healthcare of the patients. NHS services would be regulated through licenced monitors to assure that the best interests of the patients are met. The monitors would also work to prevent potential abuses and restrictions that could affect competition. Fair and effective competition would also be promoted to give patients more choices and access to high quality healthcare services. Monitors will also regulate the prices for NHS services along with the commissioning board (Department of Health 1). The reforms are also proposed to increase the participation and voice of the patients in the design and process of healthcare services at local and national levels. The patient empowerment will allow people to make better choices for their health care. The collective voice of the patients would be considered and reflected at all system and service levels of NHS. The NHS Commissioning Board, CCGs and the monitors will also have the responsibility to increase the involvement of patients by communicating with them about their annual commissioning plans and other problems related with NHS (NHS Pay Review Body 5). With new focus upon public health, the bill also proposed some changes meant for bringing great accountability, loyalty and nationality within NHS. The NHS commissioning board would be accountable to the Secretary of State and has to assure that all the objectives of the board are attained (Health Committee 2). To assure accountability of NHS, there are several bodies are nominated with the responsibilities to look at the matters of NHS, like the Health and Wellbeing Board, Local Health Watch and Health Watch England. The Foundation Trust Governors will also monitor the working of NHS to assure its proper functioning (Department of Health 1). These major reforms proposed in the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 are intended to resolve the problems and issues identified within the present state of functioning of NHS. It is expected that these reforms will work to improve the overall health service quality across England through restructuring and reorganization of NHS. The proposed measures, like establishment of CCGs, promotion of fair competition, increased patients’ participation, new focus upon public health and greater level of accountability and fairness would allow NHS to become more effective. The reforms are also meant to enable NHS combating with the increasing healthcare challenges of the growing population and managing its finances in better ways. Work Cited Department of Health. Liberating the NHS: Legislative Framework and Next Steps. The Stationery Office, Dec 1, 2010. Print. Department of Health. Health and Social Care Bill explained, February 17, 2012. Web. http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/factsheets/ Elmhirst, Sophie. “Nobody supports Camerons changes”. New Statesman, 2/6/2012, Vol. 141 Issue 5091, p10-12. Print. Great Britain: National Audit Office. National Health Service Landscape Review: Department of Health. UK: The Stationery Office, Jan 20, 2011. Print. Great Britain: Law Commission. Adult Social Care. UK: The Stationery Office, May 11, 2011. Print. Henwood, Melanie. “Health Bill Is Risky”. Community Care, 2/10/2011, Issue 1852, p6. Print. Health Committee, House of Commons Health Committee: Complaints and Litigation, UK: The Stationery Office, 2012. Print. Health Committee. House of Commons Select Committee on Health, 31 March 2011, Health Committee - Fifth Report. Commissioning: further issues. Web. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmhealth/796/79611.htm#n124 HM Government. Health and Social Care Bill. UK: The Stationery Office, 2011. Print. Lipley, Nick. “Health organisations agree that ministers listening exercise offers chance for change”. Nursing Management - UK, May2011, Vol. 18 Issue 2, p4. Print. NHS Pay Review Body. NHS Pay Review Body Twenty-Fifth Report 2011. UK: The Stationery Office, Mar 21, 2011. Print. Mithran, Samuel. “NHS professionals slam potentially disastrous Health and Social Care Bill”. Community Care, 1/27/2011, Issue 1850, p10. Print. Mulholland, Hélène. "Anti-NHS-reform billboards to target London mayoral elections". The Guardian, London, 2012. Print. Taylor, Matthew. "Protesters against NHS reforms occupy Westminster Bridge". The Guardian, London, 2011. Print. Walshe, Kieran and Chris Ham. “Can the government’s proposals for NHS reform be made to work”? BMJ 2011; 342:d2038. Print. White, Tony. A Guide to the NHS. London: Radcliffe Publishing, 2010. Print. Read More