Mrs Beth Taylor (pharmacy manager, Community Health South London NHS trust)
has been appointed as a member of the new National Health Service modernisation
board. Mrs Taylor has been appointed in the capacity of “a person working
in the NHS”.
The 31-strong board includes representatives of NHS staff, patients’ and
citizens’ groups, and national organisations, including unions, Royal colleges
and the NHS Confederation. The appointments to the board were announced on September
27 following a speech by Mr Alan Milburn (Secretary of State for Health) to
the Labour party conference in Brighton.
Mr Milburn said that the aim of the board would be “to ensure that words
on paper become a reality in trusts and health organisations across the country”.
One of the board’s tasks would be to draw up an annual report on the progress
of the implementation of the NHS plan.
Mrs Taylor told The Journal on September 27 that she believed that she had been
asked to be a member of the board because she had been involved in previous
new NHS developments, including NHS Direct.
She said that she would be seeking the views of pharmacists on the recently
published pharmacy plan and their thoughts on how it might be implemented so
that she could put across their ideas. However, the work of the board would
be much broader than pharmacy and she would learn more at the board’s first
meeting in October.
Ten modernisation task forces are to be established alongside the board. These
will include specialists from local and national health organisations who will
work alongside officials from the Department of Health on implementing the NHS
plan. Futher details of the task forces and their membership will be announced
later.