Policy and campaigning update - June 2008
Way Ahead 2008;12(3):4
- Visions for local services: we need your help
- Scotland: new model for remote and rural healthcare
- Wales: proposed structural change for the NHS
- Information prescriptions: the outcome
Visions for local services: we need your help
The Next Stage Review of the NHS in England has largely been a regional attempt to engage clinicians. Each Strategic Health Authority has now issued a Vision for their SHA, which includes plans for the next ten years for management of long-term conditions. The MS Trust is concerned that Visions take little or no account of neurological conditions or services. Potentially this could lead to services for people with MS being at risk. We would therefore urge all MS specialists to respond to the documents that apply to their area. MS Specialists need to voice their concerns before specialist commissioners start directing funds away from their services.
Details of the Vision are available on each SHA website, or via the Government Policy section of the MS Trust website. The MS Trust response to each Vision will be available on our website in due course.
Back to topScotland: new model for remote and rural healthcare
The Scottish Government has published a new model for the delivery of remote and rural healthcare. We know that a significant proportion of people with MS in Scotland live in remote areas, and this model is to be welcomed. It proposes a generalist framework for primary and most secondary care, with access to tertiary and very specialist care where necessary. The model includes provision for specialist nurses in Rural General Hospitals, but on a needs-based rather than condition-specific basis.
Back to topWales: proposed structural change for the NHS
The Welsh Assembly is consulting on changes for the NHS that were first mooted when Plaid Cymru and the Labour party agreed to share power last year.
It is a radical new proposal to end the internal market in Wales. The new proposals will send money directly to NHS Trusts, either straight from the Welsh Assembly Government or via a new National NHS Board for Wales.
Local Health Boards will reduce from 22 to 8, and be coterminous with local authority areas and with the seven current NHS hospital trusts. Powys Local Health Board will be served by the NHS hospital trusts on its borders. Local Health Boards will focus on delivering primary and community care, and will be directly funded. NHS Trusts will concentrate on generalist and specialist secondary services.
Uncertainty surrounds funding for neurological services and reconfiguration of hospitals in North Wales. The consultation closes as this issue of Way Ahead is dispatched, and we will update you in due course on the approved plans.
Back to topInformation prescriptions: the outcome
In 2006, Our Health, Our Care, Our Say promised that everyone with a long-term condition living in England should receive an information prescription at the point of diagnosis, as a means of supporting self-management of their condition. A number of pilot projects were run and the scheme was formally launched in March 2008. No firm recommendations were made.
"The piloting experience shows that one size does not fit all and delivery models depend upon care setting, condition, population demographics, location and other factors. Therefore local delivery and implementation of information prescriptions is essential" John Cain, Department of Health presentation 19 March 2008.
There is a web based resource to support organisations in introducing information prescriptions which contains a wide range of templates, what information may be included, how and by whom it might be delivered. Findings did however stress that the "light touch" was least successful, so patients needed clear direction to information.
Findings from a recent survey carried out by the Neurological Alliance, Ask about Medicines, and the ABPI, highlighted the lack of information about neurological conditions. But while implementation of information prescriptions might go some way towards addressing this problem, there do not appear to be any incentives for implementation. The Leeds information resource (see article in this issue of Way Ahead) is a good example of how a scheme might be incorporated into local initiatives.
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Way Ahead articles are reproduced as published. They are not updated to take account of subsequent developments. Use appropriate caution in acting on the information in any article.
