18.12.12
Seven days a week
The publication of the NHS Commissioning Board’s plans for CCGs in 2013/14 have now been laid on the table, and aim to bring greater patient control and well-aligned incentives for commissioners and providers.
Perhaps most notable of the plans is the launch of a group to consider how seven-day working could best be implemented.
Seven day service provision has long been an idealistic wish for the NHS, and a point of contention for patients – they don’t get sick on a 9-5, Monday to Friday schedule, so why should the organisation that is designed to care for them work any differently?
But bringing in more senior doctors and opening up care provision such as scans and routine operations is incredibly complicated. Contracts will have to be redesigned, incentives created, and all at a time of the most radical restructuring the NHS has ever seen.
The setting up of a group to consider how seven-day working could be implemented may not seem like much, but it is a step closer to that ideal.
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