The Government's Health and Social Care Bill sets out a series of major chages to the way in whcih teh NHS is organised and NHS funds are managed.
The reformed system would mean:
- GPs, in consortia, will have responsibility for commissioning (managing and paying for) NHS healthcare services. Primiary Care Trusts, whicih do this role now, will be abolished;
- a new NHS Commissioning Board will be established to lead on quality improvement and promote choice;
- local authorities will establish health and wellbeing boards in every upper-tier local authority, withthe aim of promoting joint working and integrated services across health and social care. Councils will have the powers to scrutinise any NHS funded services, whoever provides them;
- all NHS trusts will become NHS foundation trusts by 2014;
- Monitor will become an economic regulator with responsibility for protecting the interests of patients and the public. It will do this through supporting the continuity of services, driving productivity by regulating prices, and promoting competition to ensure patients’ right to choice is protected;
- Public Health England will be created witht he aim of giving public health a distinct identity to promote health protection and prevention;
- Changing LINks into local HealthWatch organisations - find out more about HealthWatch
- HealthWatch England is set up as a committee of the Care Quality Commission
Find out about the progress of the Health and Social Care Bill go to http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/healthandsocialcare.html
