21.11.12
‘National Health Partnership’ call – NHS Alliance
At the NHS Alliance conference, which began today in Bournemouth, its chairman Dr Michael Dixon has called for greater collaboration between health professionals and patients, to form a ‘National Health Partnership’.
Dr Dixon made the case for commissioning and an end to an “over-medicalised, over-professionalised and over-hospitalised” NHS.
He highlighted clinical commissioners as “heroes” and insist that ‘assumed liberty’ is translated into action. He said: “From now on, anyone who wants to mess around with CCGs or their leaders will find themselves looking down the wrong end of the gun.
“Because this time, we will ensure that the ideals, that you fought for, actually happen. This time, there will be no replay of the broken promises of the past.”
Dr Dixon acknowledged that there are many with concerns about the new system of commissioning, and that “we must answer these fears”. By placing patients as an intrinsic part of the system, commissioners can lead a revolution to a new NHS, he added.
“We will need to think ever bigger, wider and more ambitious. We will need to re-engineer a totally new relationship between the NHS and the people it serves.
“As a National Health Service we must now go beyond being simply a repository for the downstream consequences of all of these. Just patching people up. As a National Health Partnership we can begin to do something about them!”
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