Health secretary calls time on NHS top-down reforms
Alan Johnson has sought to win over NHS workers
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Wednesday, 04, Jul 2007 04:44
The newly-appointed health secretary has today attempted to soothe the discontent between the government and health workers by announcing a far-reaching NHS review.
Alan Johnson told the Commons that health minister Professor Ara Darzi will be conducting a review into the NHS which will be completed by July 2008.
He said the review offered up the opportunity for a reassessment of spending policies in the NHS, which has been increasingly stretched in recent years as the government demanded better fiscal results.
Such pressure resulted in numerous job losses and budget cuts and culminated in former health secretary Patricia Hewitt being heckled by nurses at their annual conference last year.
Speaking today, Mr Johnson said the review would have an interim assessment this autumn and will involve patients, doctors, nurses and other practitioners.
"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," he said.
"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."
He added that what was "right for the last decade", specifically unpopular top-down targets and major 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," he added.
Prime minister Gordon Brown echoed his secretary of state's comments and pledged that 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".
Responding to the review, Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund thinktank, welcomed the announcement that there will be no more centrally-driven NHS reorganisations in England.
He said this would go some way towards responding to poor staff morale and a "lack [of] shared vision about where our health service should be going".
But he cautioned: "It is important that the government does not raise expectations among staff or the public that cannot be met.
"There are difficult decisions ahead about where and how care should be provided and there are complex trade-offs to be made. To deliver workable recommendations, the review must be driven by local NHS organisations with everything orientated around what is best value care for patients."