Consultations
The NHS White Paper, Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS, sets out the Government's long-term vision for the future of the NHS. The vision builds on the core values and principles of the NHS - a comprehensive service, available to all, free at the point of use, based on need, not ability to pay.
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The key highlights of the document, entitled Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, are listed below:
- The government will devolve power and responsibility for commissioning services to GPs and practice teams working in consortia.
- Every GP will be a member of a 'shadow' consortium by 2011/12.
- Consortia will start taking on duties from 2012/13 and full financial responsibility from April 2013.
- Management allowances will be available to help fund commissioning.
- An independent and accountable NHS commissioning board will allocate and account for NHS resources.
- NHS commissioning board will calculate practice-level budgets and allocate these directly to consortia and will hold practices to account.
- GP consortia will include an accountable officer.
- Each consortium will hold its constituent practices to account.
- GP consortia will agree local priorities each year, taking account of the NHS Outcomes Framework.
- GPs will need to engage patients and the public in the commissioning process.
- Over time the DoH will seek to establish a single GP contract and funding model.
- PCTs and SHAs will be phased out.
- Patients will be able to choose which GP practice they register with regardless of where they live.
- The current performance regime will be replaced with separate frameworks for public health and social care.
- A new NHS Outcomes Framework will provide the direction for the NHS.
- The government will incentivise ways of improving access to primary care in disadvantaged area
We look forward to disseminating new policy and legislation information on the 11th November 2010
