Second NHS Future Forum report highlights the importance of shared outcomes for cancer patients
The Future Forum has published its second report looking at integration, information, public health and education and training. The Government has accepted its recommendations.
CCG members met with Prof Steve Field (Chair) and representatives of the Future Forum in October to share their views about these topics and highlight the cancer perspective, feeding directly in to the review.
The Forum recommends that patients need to be offered more information and a greater degree of choice, control and personalised care. In response, the Government has promised that patient experience of integrated care will be measured as part of the Outcomes Framework for the first time.
The report also highlighted the importance of the use of shared outcomes with regard to cancer care and welcomed the new shared indicator relating to cancer mortality as proposed in the NHS Outcomes Framework for 2012/13. The report recommends where shared outcomes are underpinned by separate accountability for individual measures, there is also the need for a clear agreement about how the NHS and public health systems will contribute to each other’s measures.
A summary of the recommendations by theme is provided below.
The summary report can be viewed here. There are also individual reports on integration, education and training, information and the NHS’s role in the public’s health on the Department of Health website. The response from the Government can be viewed here.
--------------
Integration
- Integration should be defined around the patient, not the system – outcomes, incentives and system rules (ie competition and choice) need to be aligned accordingly
- Health and wellbeing boards should drive local integration through a whole-population, strategic approach that addresses local priorities
- Local commissioners and providers should be given freedom and flexibility to ‘get on and do’ through flexing payment flows and enabling planning over a longer term
Education and training
- The new local education and training boards must have the governance in place to deliver strong partnerships across healthcare providers, academia and education
- Quality must be at the heart of education and training with systems in place at all levels to reward high quality education and embed continuing professional development
- There needs to be a review of the principles and aims of the Tooke Report into medical education
- A properly structured process to support individual nurse and midwife development in post-qualification career pathways should be developed nationally
Information
- Patients should have access to their online GP-held records by the end of this Parliament
- The NHS must move to using its IT systems to share data about individual patients and service users electronically in the interests of high quality care
- The Government should set a clear deadline within the current Parliament by which all information about clinical outcomes is put in the public domain
NHS’s role in the public’s health
- The NHS must do more to prevent poor health, so it can reduce health inequalities and continue to provide high quality care for future generations
- Every healthcare professional should make every contact count – use every contact with the public to help them improve their health. This should be a core staff responsibility in the NHS Constitution
- The NHS must do more to support the wellbeing of its own staff too, helping a workforce of 1.4 million to live healthily and spread healthy messages with family, friends and patients
