Minister sets out NHS reform plans

The government has moved to calm fears about an overhaul of NHS health provision.

Setting out the interim report of his NHS review on Friday, Lord Darzi said that multi-disciplinary polyclinics would provide a range of services.

The health minister insisted that local services would not be removed, but replaced by a "new and better" alternative.

And he said that local people would lead the decisions, with local authorities given powers to challenge the plans.

"The nature of healthcare means services will always need to change, and sometimes that means re-organising how services are provided," he said.

"Our nationwide listening events have shown me that patients, the public and NHS staff are not opposed to change in principle but want to ensure it is done to save lives and improve quality and is not driven by cost or politics.

"This is not about change for change's sake. It's about change for the right reasons, improving quality of care for patients and saving lives. These pledges mean change will be locally-led, clinically-driven and evidence-based."

The government set out five pledges to assure people of the benefits of the changes, promising they would always be to the benefit of patients; would be clinically driven; locally-led; would involve NHS users; and that existing services would not be withdrawn until new ones were in place.

Darzi said his report, due to be published in full next month, would focus on "how we can enable local clinicians and patients to be the driving force of improvement and change in the NHS".

"These proposals I am setting out today are only the first part of that," he said.

"Empowered patients and empowered staff are the key to world-class standards."

Concern

However, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said the move sounded "extremely ominous". 

"We already know about the huge upheaval and loss of local services there’s likely to be in London; now we learn that something similar will happen in every single region," he said.

"Lord Darzi is tripping over himself to say there isn't another big, top-down reorganisation of the NHS coming; unfortunately he has only heightened suspicion that that's exactly what this is. 

"Today's announcement sounds all too much like a sweetener to prepare us for a set of proposals next month that the government knows people will find very hard to swallow."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said the five pledges "are nothing more than vacuous spin".

"This document talks about change being locally led, yet the government has already ordered all Primary Care Trusts to open a polyclinic, regardless of any local need for one," he said.

"No amount of desperate dressing-up can conceal the fact that the forthcoming Darzi report is set to ride roughshod over the wishes and needs of many local areas."