Prevention in NHS reforms
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has pledged that the next raft of reforms in the NHS will move away from acute care to prevention, and health and social care in the community.
Delivering the London School of Economics annual health and social care
lecture, she said that the Government was also determined to tackle health
inequality and promised that more money would be targeted to deprived
areas. She calculated that over the next two years this would mean people
living in poor areas would receive £1,700 per head of NHS funding
compared with £1,200 per head for people in more affluent areas.
Ms Hewitt also repeated the Government’s commitment to its patient
choice agenda, having more diverse NHS providers — including those
in the private sector — and the principle of money following the
patient.
She did not rule out further reorganisation and said that the current
consultations about mergers and restructuring of primary care trusts
were essential if they were to have the “weight and expertise” they
needed to influence health providers. |
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