14.11.12
Mandate delivered to NHS Commissioning Board
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has delivered the first mandate from the Government to the NHS, setting out priorities for the NHS Commissioning Board. The mandate covers the next two years and covers what patients in England can expect from GPs, hospitals and the wider NHS.
The mandate focuses on helping people live longer, managing ongoing physical and mental health conditions, helping patients recover from periods of injury or ill health, making sure people experience better care, and providing safe care.
Improving early diagnosis will be prioritised, as will reducing premature death from the biggest killers, improving care for new mothers and better help for patients with dementia.
The Friends and Family feedback test will be rolled out from April, and by 2015 everyone will be able to book GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions and talk to their practice online.
Mental and physical health should be treated as equal priorities, and local NHS organisations should publish results for all their major services by 2015.
The NHS Commissioning Board will be given a budget of £95bn for 2013/14 to deliver these objectives.
Hunt said: “The NHS is one of the finest institutions in the world and we are working with health professionals to keep it that way.
“Never in its long history has the NHS faced such rapid change in our healthcare needs, from caring for an older population, to managing the cost of better treatments, to seizing the opportunities of new technology.
“This mandate is about giving the NHS the right priorities to deal with those challenges. We do not want an NHS that focuses on narrow performance indicators but instead looks at true measures of whether all of us are receiving the highest quality of care.
“By focusing on what matters to patients, and giving doctors and other health professionals the freedom to deliver, we will make sure the NHS stays relevant to our needs and ensure this country’s proudest creation remains its finest.”
The full mandate is at: www.wp.dh.gov.uk/publications/files/2012/11/mandate.pdf
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