White Paper outlines shift from secondary care to primary care
Minor procedures are to be conducted in new generation community
hospitals |
Plans to move services from hospitals into the community are outlined in the Government's new White Paper “Our
health, our care, our say — a new direction for community services”.
Speaking at the launch of the paper, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt
said that over the next 10 years, she wants to see five per cent of resources
moving from secondary to primary care, in order to make primary and community
services more responsive to people’s needs.
This shift could see specialisms such as ear, nose and throat and dermatology
carried out in new community hospitals and GP surgeries. Ministers want
to see health firms and voluntary organisations running GP practices,
and nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals being given more
responsibility.
The paper states that some community hospitals are under threat of closure,
as primary care trusts consider the best configuration of services in
the area. PCTs making decisions about the future of community hospitals
will be required to demonstrate to their strategic health authority that
they have consulted locally and have considered options such as developing
new partnerships and new ownership possibilities. SHAs will then test
PCT community hospital proposals against the principles of the White
Paper.
Ray Fitzpatrick, chair of the Hospital Pharmacists Group of the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society said: “Hospital pharmacists should not perceive
this as a threat but should see it as an opportunity for greater integration
with their primary care colleagues which can only lead to improved patient
care.”
The paper goes on to state that PCTs will be invited, where appropriate,
working with local authority partners, to bid for capital support for
reinvestment in a new generation of community hospitals providing diagnostics,
minor surgery, intermediate care and basic primary care.
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Hospital Pharmacist