Press release: Tony Blair gives message to NHS Confederation annual conference 2001
04 Jul 2001
I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak to an audience of NHS managers and leaders. The second term for this government has to be about embedding far reaching reform and investment in all parts of the health and social service. And I recognise this requires top quality management and leadership throughout the NHS. The important debate about how we cut bureaucracy should not be confused and won't be, with the need to invest in management. Because investing in management is actually investing for reform.
And reform in the NHS is above all else about empowering you, the frontline NHS services, liberating the talents of the people at the frontline to make the changes necessary. This has to include NHS managers.
What I would like to see is a new culture of public sector enterprise that can work hard to ensure we create the right conditions for a successful rebuilding of the NHS. And that means for example, decentralisation - that there shouldn't be an avalanche of different initiatives coming from Government every day. And it means recognising the managers' contribution to NHS reform so far.
I know that the different jobs you have is both keeping the show on the road and introducing far-reaching modernisation. And I realise too the strength of your commitment to the NHS, the pressures and if you like the constant struggle against the coalition of eternal pessimists with whom we are all familiar - whether from right or left.
I also recognise the important role the Confederation plays in contributing ideas and solutions from NHS management. So it's right that NHS management has an independent voice telling us what's right and wrong on the ground, informing the debate about the NHS from the management perspective and fostering important communications across the NHS and its key partners has to be one of our key concerns.
So I listen to what the Confederation says because I know they're in touch with grass roots NHGS concerns. And our commitment as a government has got to be to work with all of you to see the NHS succeed. It won't be easy - we are now getting substantial amounts of investment and what we've got to do patiently and in partnership together is make the change and reforms that go alongside investment to create the NHS to which we're all committed.
Notes for editors
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