Press release: NHS Confederation sets out its vision for the Darzi review
13 May 2008
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Challenges for Darzi, an NHS Confederation report released today, warns that Lord Ara Darzi must learn the lessons of previous poor policy making in order to ensure that reform in the NHS delivers real and sustainable benefits for patients and NHS staff.
The NHS Confederation, which represents over 95 per cent of NHS organisations, has set out tests for assessing and developing health policy against which Lord Darzi's proposals should be judged. These principles include making sure policy is coherent and joined up with other overarching aims while at the same time having a realistic timeframe, being properly costed, and leaving time for rigorous independent evaluation.
The report also highlights some of the ideas that could make the biggest difference in making the outcomes of the review successful. The Confederation has called on health minister Lord Ara Darzi to help the NHS improve by fostering innovation and bring the way that knowledge and learning is shared throughout the NHS into the 21st century.
This includes developing a 'knowledge portal', where people can find research, techniques and examples, which could be key to helping managers and clinicians access the latest ideas and share their ideas. As well as connecting people to the evidence of what works, there is huge potential to use the collective wisdom of NHS staff and patients through web technology used by Wikipedia and social networking sites.
The Confederation believes a culture of curiosity is needed that encourages people to question and improve the way things are done. Some of the measures to help could include an NHS 'Dragons Den' or venture capital bank or a knowledge portal that would work along similar lines to social networking sites such as Facebook.
The Confederation's report also states the NHS needs to:
- revolutionise the level of feedback and measurement of outcomes and patient experience, backed up by giving staff the time they need to develop their skills, along with incentives and rewards for high performance
- deliver better primary care by strengthening mechanisms to deal with poor performance and address health inequalities, including the removal of the Minimum Practice Income Guarantee
- improve community services through investing in informatics to support commissioning and allow further integration with social care
- recruit the right staff - workforce planning is the biggest unresolved problem around the NHS workforce
- nurture leaders - especially middle management as the real difference will come from those at the front line
- use information systems better such as service directories to provide patients and professionals to find out which organises provide which services and who to contact
Commenting on the report NHS Confederation policy director Nigel Edwards said:
"We have seen with the work of cardiac surgeons, for example, that radically changing the amount and the way the NHS collects information for the purpose of improving services can have a dramatic effect on outcomes for patients. Staff need the time and space with the right incentives so they can play a more active role in improving the NHS.
"At the Confederation we believe that we need to see more of these initiatives. The NHS workforce has massive potential to improve services that is often untapped. Staff should be encouraged to look curiously at what goes on around them and feel free to suggest ways in which things can be improved.
"An NHS Bank and a knowledge portal that allows for the free flow of innovative ideas while providing an opportunity for the best ideas to be taken forward and developed more widely could be a step in the right direction in making the most of all this talent.
"Lord Darzi's review represents a real opportunity for the NHS to set out how it wants to develop in the years to come. At the Confederation we are keen that any policy to come out of the review will be fit for purpose and learn from what has not worked well in the past."
ENDS
Notes for editors
- The NHS Confederation represents more than 95% of the organisations that make up the NHS. Its members include the majority of NHS acute trusts, ambulance trusts, foundation trusts, mental health trusts, primary care trusts, special health authorities and strategic health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.
Contact details
Contact Niall Smith 020 7074 3304 or 07767 770309, Ruth Kennedy 020 7074 3312 or 07884 47 3086, or Ruby Casey-Knight 020 7074 3306 or 07881 957305. For out of hours media enquiries, please call the Duty Press Officer on 07880 500726.