Health reform in England: update and next steps

includes Annex: the commissioning framework

July 2006

This document updates Our health, our care, our say, and 'Health reform in England'.

Its primary purpose is to provide a timeframe for further guidance on the detail of how commissioning in primary care will work.

The Annex, however, contains some important points for people with MS.

Detail about the new Primary Care Trust Prospectus

This is seen as vital to underpinning choice and accountability. The new PCT Prospectus will set out results of local health needs assessments; publish patient satisfaction and patient experience ratings of services; present areas for future investment and commissioning priorities; stimulate service development by signalling commissioning priorities and opportunities to potential providers; provide direct public accountability for commissioning decision and performance; include a 3-5 year forecast of future service needs.

Guidance on Specialised Service Commisioning

Specialised Services have historically been a contained set of services that are provided in specialist centres that may not be available in every health authority area. For MS, these include wheelchair services, neurorehabilitation services and pain clinics, among other things. The new arrangements should ensure that any health professional continues to be able to refer patients to specialised services regardless of where these are provided.

Arrangements for triggering community action

'Our Health, our care, our say' promised that people in a PCT should be able to raise petitions that the PCT had to take seriously. Given a number of safeguards, petitions may include: demand for new services, dissatisfaction with existing providers and dissatisfaction with existing provision; they could not be used to prolong debate on proposed service reconfiguration following the outcome of a formal consultation.

Included in the proposal is a threshold figure for action, of 1% of the public served by a PCT for general services, or 10% for a specialised service. However, it should be stressed that this will be consulted on later in the year and may change.

More information and a copy of these documents is available from the Department of Health website.