National Plan for the NHS
- Blair unveils NHS plan for 21st century.
Guardian 27 July 2000.
- Tony Blair's long awaited National Plan for radically overhauling the health service - billed as the biggest shake-up the NHS has seen since it was founded in 1948 - was published by the government today.
Guardian 27 July 2000.
- The reform of the NHS has gradually become one of the top priorities of Tony Blair's government.
Guardian 27 July 2000.
- A blueprint for health.
At last, an NHS reform which should work.Guardian Leader 28 July 2000.
- Amid the generally positive reaction to the national plan for the NHS, a warier note has greeted the government's response to the report of the royal commission on long-term care.
Presenting this as part of the national plan for the health service overall could be said to illustrate genuinely joined up thinking. A less charitable, perhaps more cynical, interpretation is that the less-than-joyous news was tucked inside to deflect attention. Guardian 2 August 2000.
- Muzzling the Watchdog.
The self-congratulatory fanfare announcing the launch of the national plan for the NHS has overshadowed real concerns about accountability, raised by the plan's proposed abolition of community health councils
(CHCs).
Established in 1974, CHCs have provided a national network of independent health watchdogs. The plan fragments part of their work across a number of new bodies and gives no indication as to who will perform which of their functions. There are also significant worries about how effective and independent the proposed replacement structures will be. Guardian 13 September 2000
- Joyce Struthers (Letters, September 27) rightly condemns the compromising of independent assessment inherent in government proposals that local authorities should act as scrutineers of health services in whose provision they are themselves involved. A similar conflict of interest arises when, as is increasingly the case, watchdog bodies such as Age Concern are commissioned to provide services like day care centres and emergency call facilities for the elderly. Scrutiny and service delivery functions should surely never be the responsibility of the same
organisation. Guardian Letters 4 October 2000.
- Tony Blair's admission that the government should be "absolutely frank" about the time needed to improve the NHS was thrown back in his face yesterday when a senior surgeon accused him of raising unrealistic expectations by "spinning" the figures. Bernard
Rebeiro, a consultant surgeon at Basildon hospital and member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons, told the prime minister that by promising 7,500 new consultants, when only 1,500 of these would be new posts, or 200 new CT scanners, when all but 50 were replacements, "the government is giving the impression the health service is going to be so much better when it isn't". Guardian 18 October 2000.
- The government yesterday signalled its determination to press ahead with a shake-up of the NHS and social services in the face of criticism from sections of the medical profession and community health councils.
The health secretary, Alan Milburn, published the health and social care bill to implement parts of the NHS plan, which he and Tony Blair unveiled last summer.
The bill proposes granting nurses and pharmacists a wider medical role (notably in prescribing drugs) and tackling hospital "bed blocking" by improving ties with social services departments. Controversially, Mr Milburn also wants to see local community health councils replaced with patients' forums inside every NHS trust. Guardian 22 December 2000.
- The government's strict timetable for implementing the NHS plan is showing the first sign of slippage, with concerns over how long it will take health authorities to assess how many extra beds they need. The NHS plan calls for over 8,000 acute and community based beds to be introduced by 2004, but managers have warned that firm projections on bed needs are unlikely by the May-to-July deadline for local bed assessments. Health Service Journal Roundup 8 March 2001, Guardian 9 March 2001.
- NHS plan: the basics
Patrick Butler
Guardian Society
Monday March 19, 2001
- NHS plan: the issue explained
Patrick Butler
Guardian Society
Monday March 19, 2001
- The NHS plan one year on - has anything changed? Patrick
Butler and David Batty Guardian Society Thursday July 26, 2001
- Is a primary care trust that covers urban and rural areas serving both
communities equally well? Steve Brown on divided opinions in West
Yorkshire. Steve Brown Guardian
Wednesday September 26, 2001
- The health secretary, Alan Milburn, today vowed to dismantle the outdated
"paternalistic" culture of the NHS by outlining new powers for
patients to choose where and when they receive hospital treatment.
Patrick Butler Guardian
Society Thursday October 25, 2001
999 callers may be refused ambulance. Anthony Browne, health editor Observer
Sunday November 4, 2001
- Public health: the issue explained Patrick Butler Guardian
Society Tuesday November 6, 2001
- Partnerships under pressure. Intended by the government as
comprehensive health and social services solutions, the reality of care trusts
is inappropriate and unsustainable, writes David Batty. Guardian
Society Friday February 8, 2002
- NHS reform: the issue explained. Labour has promised to create an NHS for
the 21st century, investing record sums to try to achieve its vision of a
dynamic publicly-funded, consumer-driven health service. Patrick Butler
reports.
Wednesday May 7, 2003 . See also
Foundation Hospitals.
- The NHS plan. What's in this big issue?
Wednesday May 14, 2003
- Labour has spent hundreds of millions of pounds since 2000 in an effort to
realise its NHS Plan. Since then 'patient power' has become 'patient choice'
and there have been countless victories and setbacks, as Debbie Andalo and
Patrick Butler report.
Thursday April 21, 2005
See Society Guardian index on
The NHS Plan. See Society Guardian index on
The future for public services
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