Press release: Freedom from excessive Whitehall control for the whole healthcare system
22 May 2002
Responding to today's announcement on foundation hospitals, speaking at NHS management's annual conference, Gill Morgan, chief executive of the Confederation said that freedoms proposed for the new foundation hospitals should be available to all parts of the NHS in an integrated way that will improve performance across the NHS and be part of a new approach to performance management.
Gill Morgan said, "the government has got the diagnosis right but the treatment wrong. The Secretary of State is correct to say the NHS cannot be run from Whitehall. However, the creation of a small number of foundation organisations does not address the problem of central control - if freedoms would improve performance then they are needed by all. The most important change is to the overall system of performance management - our members are concerned that this is not conducive to creating high performance at present."
She continued, "It is often those hospitals that are failing that most need the freedoms to improve. There is also a major risk that relationships between all the parts of the system will suffer - we need to be focused on systems of care for patients and the relationships between the parts of the NHS and within organisations not on organisational changes."
Gill Morgan raised issues about the performance system in her opening speech to the conference, "There are too many targets and they do not encourage organisations to aspire to improve. There is a perceived lack of freedom at a local level to tackle the things that people know need resolving and failure is not always handled supportively or developmentally."
Ends
Notes for editors
- Delegates at the conference will be voting on the proposals on foundation hospitals this afternoon.
- The NHS Confederation's annual conference is taking place in Harrogate between 22 and 24 May 2002.
- 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.
Contact details
- Contact Media Relations Manager Joanna Clason on 020 7074 3306 or 07798 571078 or Senior Media Officer Amy Darlington on 020 7074 3304 or 07767 770309. For out of hours media enquiries, please call the Duty Press Officer on 07880 500726.
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