Wakey! Wakey!
Regulation of the NHS is need of a radical overhaul to keep pace with reforms, experts claim, and the government must rethink its role in the health care sector.
Over the next few years health care will be increasingly provided by the private sector and foundation trusts which operate outside state control, but experts at a recent debate hosted by the King’s Fund think tank have urged the government to go much further.
Jennifer Dixon, the Fund’s director of policy, said the current moves to allow every hospital to become a foundation trust by 2008 as well as the proposal to give GPs powers to commission service and increase private sector provision, was presenting challenges for regulation. There needed to be ‘better information for patients’ and more emphasis on economics as NHS trusts are given more autonomy.
Bill Moyes, chairman of Monitor added: “There needs to be greater clarity. The government has to rethink its role. The Department of Health can no longer bark at people.
“I think it has to act more like a headquarters of a major insurance company, handing out the money so we can get the best value, but leaving local purchasers to manage.”
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