Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS Paper

The Government clearly sets out its vision for the future of the NHS in the White Paper – ‘Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS’. The White Paper emphasises that the government intends to make the NHS more accountable to patients and that patients will be at the heart of everything it does.

This means that patients will have more choice and control helped by easy access to the information they need. They are to be in charge of making decisions about their care. The Government lists several reasons for this, namely that evidence has shown that involvement improves health outcomes, increases satisfaction and increases adherence to treatment and it can also bring about significant reductions in cost as well as improve the management of long term conditions. The Health Bill is to create HealthWatch England. It will be within the remit of CQC (Care Quality Commision).

Local Involvement Networks (LINks) will become the local HealthWatch. There are four local and four national roles listed for HealthWatch. Nationally HealthWatch will have the power to propose CQC investigations of poor services and local HealthWatch will also have the power to report concerns about the quality of providers.

A summary of what the changes mean to patients:

The full document:

Equity and Excellence - Liberating the NHS

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