New health secretary Andy Burnham told delegates yesterday he is pleased to be backand to have an opportunity to build on NHS successes.
He said that we’ve “dealt with the fundamentals” and need to create a truly people-centred NHS that empowers patients and carers as experts and one where we’re always looking at the patient experience. “I want us to move to an era where every organisation is held to account by the patient experience,” he said.
He was emphatic about prevention, telling delegates: “Don’t feel you have to wait for permission to invest in prevention. In fact, as a broad strategy, I would strongly urge all PCTs to invest along those lines. We’ve been too timid at times on the public health agenda.”
He took the opportunity to announce extra freedoms for the best performing PCTs from 2010/11 and proposals for a new MRSA standard.
On targets he said they “have a time and place where they’re important.” But he promised to remove the ones that have “had their day.”
He urged delegates to invest in surpluses for tomorrow and was clear that quality doesn’t have to be expensive.
“My first reaction on returning to the Department of Health was that it is in a position of great strength,” he said. “There are challenges ahead – as always – but let’s not talk ourselves into a crisis.”
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary, told delegates today that fundamental changes are needed in the health service, which is facing a potential perfect storm of rising health inflation and cost pressures.
“My real anxiety is that when a crisis occurs it’s always the most vulnerable who suffer first,” he said.
He called for fundamental changes in the health service, but was clear in his support for the NHS. “I believe passionately in the NHS, free at the point of need, but if it is to survive and prosper in the future it has to be capable of change.”
The fundamental changes that he called for were a shift towards health and well-being and a policy of keeping people with chronic problems out of hospital; a ruthless bid to achieve greater efficiency; the dismantling of centralised bureaucracy and local democracy; and incentives and levers to achieve change. Mr Lamb also indicated his support for greater integration between health and social care, citing the lessons that could be learnt from Northern Ireland.
He called for “competitive localised democracy” for local health boards with tax-raising powers so not all the money for the health service comes from the centre. He also called for an end to the national IT programme and emphasised the need for local connectivity.
He questioned the working of Payment by Results and said that fundamental reform was needed. We must look at the patient pathway, he said, and question, why, for instance, we are investing in acute hospitals at a time when we should be focusing on care for patients closer to their homes.
Mr Lamb said that he wants to liberate the NHS workforce so they can contribute much more than at present. He praised John Lewis, the store where the employees are partners and not only share in the profits, but also in the running of the business.
He also said that he wants to empower patients to take more responsibility for their own health and looked towards the personalised budgets model in social care for people using mental health services and those with learning difficulties, “giving power to the individual service user or patient should be central to the next stage of reform,” he said.