13.02.13
Box ticking ‘cannot be the solution’ – Hunt on Francis
There is too much unnecessary regulation and bureaucracy in the NHS, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has stated in his first public response to the Francis report.
The report made 290 recommendations, many of which would require new laws and regulations. Hunt said that foundation trusts currently have 60 different regulatory, licensing, commissioning and public scrutiny authorities that they must report to and comply with.
It was this “elephant trap” of bureaucracy that must be avoided and reduced, he said.
Nurses spend a fifth of their time on paperwork, much of it duplicated. Hunt announced his intention to try and reduce bureaucratic burdens by a third, and if more regulation must be added, it must be outweighed by others being taken away.
He announced that Mike Farrar, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, is to draw up a plan for how joint inspections and shared information can improve clinical outcomes and free up more time for care.
Hunt said: “A Chief Inspector will draw the multitudinous inspection regimes together and focus them on what is really important. It will put quality of care first, on a par – or even more important than – financial stability. If a hospital fails to deliver the level of care that we would expect, it will be put into a failure regime.
“At the moment, failure to meet CQC standards simply does not have enough consequences for the management of a hospital. Losing control of your finances matters – of course – but losing control of your care matters even more – and boards need to know that their jobs are on the line if they don’t sort out those problems.
“But as we make these changes, we must avoid a huge elephant trap: to think care and compassion can be commanded from on high either by regulators or politicians. Endless boxes to tick, cumbersome bureaucracy and burdensome regulations are a big part of the problem – they cannot be the solution.”
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