Press release: New incentives and freedoms will release initiative
18 Apr 2002
NHS management welcomed the increase in positive incentives and freedoms announced today in the House of Commons by Secretary of State Alan Milburn, together with a new inspection and audit regime and the ambitions behind the proposed changes in social care.
Dr Gill Morgan, chief executive of the NHS Confederation said, "taken together these new incentives and freedoms will be an important cultural step from pushing the NHS to change through targets to pulling the NHS to change through incentives. In time, this will encourage the NHS to develop more capacity and increase choice for patients."
The announcement of a new Inspectorate for Healthcare Inspection and Audit is also welcome. NHS management has been calling for a less crowded and better integrated inspection field for some time. Dr Morgan said, "This will ensure clarity and better public accountability. Inspection alone though will not drive the standards we want." The Confederation commented that it will be important for the healthcare and social care inspectorates to work closely together.
Commenting on the changes to social care, Dr Morgan said, "We welcome recognition of the importance of health and social care working together to support older people. There is a need for incentives to drive the relationship. However, we need to take care that in implementing models from other countries we minimise any unintended consequences. For example, there is a danger that this system would create a perverse incentive to move people unnecessarily frequently."
Finally, Dr Morgan called on the media and politicians to celebrate successes and give the NHS reasonable time to deliver a long term programme of reform saying "in the Wanless report, we now have an evidence based assessment of the requirements of the NHS. It is time to trust the NHS to deliver, to give it the breathing space and freedom to succeed in the short and long term, whilst being rigorous in our management of the change and assessment of progress. We must engage in a realistic debate with the public about the realistic timescales of change and the things that are already happening to improve the NHS, or we will succeed in talking down a system with many virtues and determine its failure."
Ends
Notes for editors
- The NHS Confederation represents the organisations that make up the NHS. Our members include the majority of NHS trusts, primary care trusts and health authorities in England; trusts, health authorities and local health groups in Wales; trusts and NHS boards in Scotland; and health and social services trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.
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