The UK National Priorities for Healthcare - Essay Example

National priorities for healthcare for the future Presently, healthcare in most countries is managed and directed by health organizations that have the work to meet, to the best of their abilities within a limited funding scope, the health needs of a pre-defined population. This worldwide trend has been brought under the scanner by a number of health care reforms and other system-level progress. Basically, what has to be understood is the fact that there are presently greater claims to resources than the resources available. By this fact therefore some kind of priority setting becomes a must for all nations and agencies concerned. Healthcare in the UK is managed mostly by the NHS. The NHS in the United Kingdom is the common name for the four publicly funded healthcare services system that exist in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. NHS, in other words is the National Health Service system that exists in Great Britain. The basic principles underlying the system are the fact that ideally there is no discrimination when a patient resident in part of UK is need of treatment in another. The merit of the system is basically that paper work and finances can be taken care of in an easier manner. The NHS was formed shortly after World War II in hopes of unifying the country. The principle that free healthcare for everyone - rich and poor - is a natural right was the foundation upon which the NHS was built. Agenda setting and prioritization in the UK is decided along the lines of an approach known as PBMA. The basic principles are same as economic allocations, but has been said to be more practical and is applicable at various levels within health organizations. It can be applied in individual programs of care, across a set of programs within the same general service area, or more broadly, across major service areas. Mostly, a PBMA process is reliant upon a recommending panel which is give the responsibility of identifying, within a budget, planning cycle, areas of service growth and areas for resource allocation. This means that if new money is pumped into a health organization some of it will probably be put into new usage and growth areas. It is also true that there are times when growth is possible even without the availability of new resources. Available resources then have to be used in these additional growth options. As such, PBMA, and its central concept of resource re-allocation, has merit in instances when budgets are not always truly fixed. The NHS system has been named among the best in the world as far as social service health providers are concerned. The future priorities of healthcare in accordance with the guidelines that have bee laid out by the NHS are patient centric. The basic idea is that the patients’ needs have to be determined according to the level of healthcare that a condition requires and by the designation of bed that the patient occupies. There have been efforts that have been made by the Department of Health to review and thereby improve adult healthcare services. The basic priority that has been followed for a while is preventive healthcare instead of corrective healthcare. The country infact spends over 200 Billion Dollars a year to the aim of fulfillment of this goal. There has been an identification of the need for in depth work on nursing issues. The guiding principle that has resulted from the formulation and acceptance of various commissions and reviews has been Comprehensive Critical Care. This is in essence a new approach based on the severity of illness. Services rendered in accordance with this principle will try and be comprehensive, inclusive and will take responsibility for the critical care of the population. The aim of the approach is to ensure a modernization of the process of healthcare. Comprehensive critical care should be delivered locally to a consistent vision and standards whether in a general or specialist context. It aims to meet the needs of all patients who are critically ill including those with specialist needs rather than just of those who make it into the beds currently designated as either intensive care or high dependency care. Critical care must be patient focused, putting the patient at the centre of the service and with the means to respond to peaks in demand for the service. The basic priorities of Critical Care as outlined by reports and NHS documents are: An effort to integrate healthcare facilities. This would include a hospital wide approach including all services that are to extend beyond the physical boundaries of intensive care and high dependency units. This would I turn help in the maximum utilization of all available resources including beds. There is a set priority to develop a service across NHS trusts that will work in accordance to standard protocol thereby taking responsibility for all critically unwell specialties in a given geographical area. Work force development is a major re1uirement in any given public healthcare scenario. The set goal here is the recruitment, training and retention of medical and nursing staff thereby balancing skill mix so that the professional staff is able to delegate less skilled and non clinical tasks. Finally the prioritization sets great store by the need for creation of a data collecting culture and promoting an evidence base. The need for a service underpinned by reliable information that will ensure the delivery of effective clinical care has been clearly stated. The NHS plan which was outlined in 2004 clearly stated that there would be an active effort to put people at the center of healthcare. It stated that there would be efforts to create an “NHS which is fair to all and personal to each one by offering everyone the same access to, and the power to choose from, a wide range of services of high quality, based on clinical need, not ability to pay.” It further stated that NHS will develop into a health service, rather than one that focuses primarily on sickness and that there would be a sustained drive to reduce inequalities in health. The basic aims as can be deducted from the above mentioned points then amount to an aim of making NHS a health service and not a sickness service; and second there is an obvious focus on removing inequalities with respect to healthcare. It is in this context that one has to look at the recommendations of the Darzi report, and the Quality care Commission. ‘The report entitled Quality Care for All’ was published in 2008. The report was the final report as part of the NHS Next Stage Review, and made in co production with the NHS. The report is testimonial to the changing goals of the NHS. Earlier the organizational focus was on quality but in the past decade capacity building has taken the limelight in a big way. There has thus been a significant investment in resources. The basic recommendations are with regards to the quality healthcare. These recommendations include making an effort to bring clarity to quality, thereby making its easy to access proof about the best practices. Second, there has to be effort to support doctors and practitioners. Improving information which is published and making it available to the civic community. It also recommends that work done well has to be rewarded. The recommendations further talk about the recognition of the role of the doctors, stresses better innovations and research. The most important section of the report however is that it recognizes the fact that work force development is a major requirement in any given public healthcare scenario. The set goal therefore, is the recruitment, training and retention of medical and nursing staff thereby balancing skill mix so that the professional staff is able to delegate less skilled and non clinical tasks. The report was also the breeding ground for the Quality Care Commission. The bill about the Quality Care Commission was passed in 2008 and the commission became effective from April 1, 2009. The commission is supposed to work inclusive of the functions of Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and Mental Health Act Commission. The Bill that was passed defines its functions as making sure of safety and quality of healthcare, work evaluation of medical practitioners, regulating and checking the functioning of the Mental Health Act and making sure that that health related activities across boards and health commissions are coordinated. This again is proof that focus of Critical Care in UK has now shifted that to quality work and a smoother way of processing the allocation of resources. There are various models available for healthcare administration all over the world, each with its pros and cons. Comparisons are drawn with respect to cost, public satisfaction, professional satisfaction, and outcomes to mention a few. There are critics that condemn the method that has been adopted in UK. But it has to be accepted that any method, as long as it is true to its set methods, goals and principles will attain a degree of success. The only pre requisite is an effective implementation and a proper working strategy. Reference: Comprehensive Healthcare: A review of adult healthcare systems, accessed on April 16, 2009, The future regulation of health and adult social care in England: a consultation on the framework for the registration of health and adult social care providers, accessed on April 16, 2009, http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_083625 Health care priority Setting, Principles, Challenges and Practice, accessed on April 16, 2009, http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/2/1/3 Care Quality commission, accessed on April 16, 2009, http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Legislation/Actsandbills/HealthandSocialCareBill/DH_080438 Darzi Report, accessed on April 16, 2009, http://www.wiganleigh.nhs.uk/Internet/About_Us/darzi_report.asp Levels of adult Healthcare, accessed on April 16, 2009, http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:QalNuvB_nTEJ:www.ics.ac.uk/icmprof/downloads/icsstandards-levelsofca.pdf+Adult+Critical+Care+in+UK&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk Read More