A Brief Guide to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011

The Health and Social Care Bill 2011 is the most extensive restructuring of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) since its introduction in 1948. Because of the devolved nature of the UK, the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 mainly affects England, but it does contain some provisions that affect Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too. The NHS is a publicly funded healthcare system, paid for by taxation. As such, the NHS is extremely costly, which is one of the reasons why the UK parliament decided to restructure the organisation to provide a more efficient and cost-effective service.

The UK parliament introduced the Health and Social Care Bill in January 2011 and it contains several provisions that intend to cover the following aspects of health care delivery:

• Establish an independent Board to allocate NHS resources and provide commissioning guidance.

• Move more power to General Practitioners (GPs) to allow them to commission services on behalf of their patients.

• Strengthen the role of the Care Quality Commission that oversees patient’s treatment.

• To develop an economic regulator to oversee aspects of access and competition in the NHS.

• Cut the number of unnecessary health bodies, bureaucracy and NHS administration, including abolishing Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities.

Before the bill, primary care trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) controlled hospitals and medical practices in local areas. These organisations decided where and what the authorities money was spent on. The bill hands over this control to over to several hundred “consortia” run by the GPs who will control their own health care budgets, deciding where and what to spend the money on. By giving GPs more control and getting rid of the PCTs and SHAs, it is hoped that the cost of NHS management can be reduced by 45 percent, helping to save money and cut bureaucracy.

The bill also intends to make the NHS more accountable to patients by establishing an independent body to oversee health care providers and deal with complaints. The bill is also designed to encourage more hospitals in England to become foundation trust hospitals. These hospitals have more independence and are allowed to treat private patients as well as NHS patients in an attempt to earn revenue.

Another aspect of the bill is to improve public health by introducing a new body, Public Health England, to reduce health inequalities and increase health education. As the NHS is a free service and available to all citizens of the UK, prevention of disease and encouraging healthier lifestyles is seen as an important part of reducing future costs. Many health care bodies that operate at a distance from the NHS and don’t directly affect health care provision are to close. These bodies, known as quangos (Quasi-autonomous Non-governmental Organisations), include the Health Protection Agency and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

on 14.09.11 by Robert Steen