The Northern Ireland Executive began consultation on a 20-year health and social services strategy for Northern Ireland. The strategy included: a greater emphasis on prevention of illness; more emphasis on community-based services; and closer teamworking across the health and social care sector. It also proposed a smoking ban in public places in Northern Ireland.
Source: A Healthier Future: A twenty year vision for health and wellbeing in Northern Ireland 2005-2025, Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety/Northern Ireland Executive (028 9052 0500)
Links: Consultation document (pdf) | Summary (pdf) | NIE press release
Date: 2004-Dec
An article examined the use of documentary analysis in the comparative analysis of healthcare policy implementation in England. It highlighted the importance of the implied assumptions or underlying ideologies contained in policy documents.
Source: Stephen Abbott, Sara Shaw and Julian Elston, 'Comparative analysis of health policy implementation', Policy Studies, Volume 25 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2004-Dec
The government told MPs that Ministers were no longer in a position to comment on, or provide information about, the detail of operational management within National Health Service foundation trusts - the trusts were public benefit corporations, and were therefore independent of the Department of Health, and directly accountable to their local populations and to Parliament. Any Parliamentary questions would be referred to the relevant trust chairperson.
Source: House of Commons Hansard, Written Ministerial Statement 11 October 2004, column 4WS, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Hansard
Date: 2004-Oct
A new book provided an overview of the shift in National Health Service provision away from a public health system toward a 'consumerist' approach more concerned with healthcare delivery. It criticized those who promoted healthcare as a commodity, emphasizing the moral importance of social solidarity and shared risk in providing for healthcare, and also the gross inefficiencies of markets in health and social care.
Source: Allyson Pollock, NHS plc: The privatisation of our health care, Verso, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary (Word file) | UCL press release | Guardian review
Date: 2004-Sep
A report said that greater integration of health and social services - one of the major policies of devolution - had failed to deliver better health for the population of Wales.
Source: Colin Talbot, Carole Johnson and Mark Freestone, Is Devolution Creating Diversity in Education and Health?, Nottingham Policy Centre/University of Nottingham (0115 846 7439)
Links: Report (pdf) | Community Care report | BBC report
Date: 2004-Aug
An article examined shifts in healthcare policy under Labour governments since 1997, involving first an emphasis on performance measurement and investment, and (most recently) on internal markets and consumerism.
Source: Ian Greener, 'The three moments of New Labour's health policy discourse', Policy & Politics, Volume 32 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2004-Jul
The opposition Conservative Party announced key health policies for its general election manifesto. It said that proposals to give patients greater choice, free hospitals from bureaucracy, and give incentives to increase capacity and activity, would allow waiting lists to be abolished within five years. It criticised the government for undermining the National Health Service by imposing hundreds of central targets. A healthcare think tank said the proposals would mean the NHS subsidising large numbers of patients to be treated privately who would have gone private anyway.
Source: Speech by Andrew Lansley MP, 22 June 2004 | Press release 23 June 2004, King s Fund (020 7307 2400)
Links: Conservative Party press release | Policy pamphlet (pdf) | KF press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Jun
The government published a revised and updated improvement plan for the National Health Service, for the period to 2008. It said the plan would: sustain record investment levels; maintain the improvement programme; offer a greater degree of power, information, control and choice to patients; and improve the health of the population as a whole, targeting inequalities and promoting prevention as well as cure. The NHS Chief Executive urged health service managers to set challenging local targets in order to deliver the objectives set out in the plan.
Source: The NHS Improvement Plan: Putting people at the heart of public services, Cm 6268, Department of Health, TSO (0870 600 5522) | House of Commons Hansard, Debate 24 June 2004, columns 1451-1469, TSO
Links: Report (pdf) | Summary (pdf) | Hansard | DH press release (1) | DH press release (2) | NHS press release | KF press release | NHS Confederation press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2)
Date: 2004-Jun
A paper (by a senior economic adviser at the Department of Health) considered how health services should best be allocated between citizens in different health conditions and with different socio-economic characteristics. It contrasted answers based upon a utilitarian conception of the value of healthcare with those derivable from 'broader pluralist conceptions of value'. It sought to show that only the latter can do justice to our considered intuitions regarding social justice in healthcare allocation.
Source: Donald Franklin, Valuing Health, Healthcare and Health Equality, Working Paper 9, School of Public Policy/University College London (020 7679 4999)
Links: Paper (pdf)
Date: 2004-May
The National Health Service Reform (Scotland) Bill was approved by the Scottish Parliament. The Bill included clauses to complete the process of dissolving Trusts in Scotland, and allow for the establishment of new Community Health Partnerships.
Source: National Health Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2004, Scottish Executive, TSO (0870 606 5566)
Links: Text of Act
Date: 2004-May
A new book provided an introduction to policy and practice at the interface between health and social care. It explained why partnerships were important, and what helped or hindered partnership working; reviewed the legal and policy framework, placing current initiatives in their historical and social policy context; summarised existing research findings with regard to key health and social care policy debates; and used case studies of older people's care to explore the implications of this research for health and social care practitioners.
Source: Jon Glasby and Rosemary Littlechild, The Health and Social Care Divide: The experiences of older people, Policy Press, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary
Date: 2004-May
The Department of Health published its annual report for 2003-04, showing progress against performance targets.
Source: Departmental Report 2004, Cm 6204, Department of Health, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report (pdf links)
Date: 2004-Apr
A discussion paper said that government initiatives to tackle public health epidemics would have little impact unless they included practical measures to build a more effective health system. This would entail a move away from a preoccupation with health services that focused almost exclusively on treating illness, towards a broader approach that gave priority to maintaining health and reducing health inequalities.
Source: Anna Coote, Prevention Rather Than Cure: Making the case for choosing health, King s Fund (020 7307 2591)
Links: Report (pdf) | Summary (pdf) | KF press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Mar
A think-tank report said that opposition Conservative Party plans to introduce 'patient passports' would compound health inequalities. It concluded that the government should ensure the National Health Service remained a tax-funded service, rather than switching over to social insurance or providing subsidies for private healthcare,
Source: Private Payment: Boon or Bane?, Social Market Foundation (020 7222 7060)
Links: SMF press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Mar
A think-tank pamphlet proposed that the National Health Service should be de-nationalised, and public funding allocated directly to patients in the form of an insurance premium for health insurance. Unlike existing private health insurance, this publicly funded insurance would give complete cover at a flat rate irrespective of medical condition.
Source: Sheila Lawlor, Georg Baum, Jean-Louis Beaud de Brive and Deepak Lal, Systems for Success: Models for healthcare reform, Politeia (020 7240 5070)
Links: Politeia press release (Word file)
Date: 2004-Feb
The government began consultation on new performance targets for the National Health Service. It said that targets were achieving the objectives of delivering speedier treatment for patients and in expanding the NHS through more beds, hospital wards and NHS staff: but most would be delivered before the dates specified for them, and so new ones were needed from April 2005. The consultation document set out 24 'core' standards and 10 'developmental' standards, covering seven key areas: safety, clinical cost effectiveness, governance, patient focus, accessible and responsive care, healthcare environment and amenities, and public health. Core standards would set the level of quality of care which every patient should expect, wherever they were treated in the NHS. Developmental standards would set out what the NHS should aspire to deliver for patients as extra investment in the NHS continued to make a difference.
Source: Standards for Better Health: Health care standards for services under the NHS - A consultation, Department of Health (08701 555455)
Links: Consultation document (pdf) | DH press release | BMA press release | King's Fund press release | NHS Alliance press release | NHS Confederation press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2)
Date: 2004-Feb
A group of 500 hospital consultants launched a campaign to overturn the principle of a National Health Service funded through taxation. The group, called 'Doctors for Reform', argued for a system of funding healthcare through compulsory social insurance payments.
Source: Press release 25 February 2004, Reform (020 7799 6699)
Links: Reform press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Feb
The final report was published from an official review group (led by Derek Wanless) on long-term public health trends and inequalities, and their implications for future healthcare policy. It said that all previous efforts to move the focus of the National Health Service from treating sickness to preventing ill-health had failed; and it called for a co-ordinated drive by government and local health agencies against obesity, smoking and diabetes. It said there was an arguable case for extending specific taxes to foodstuffs which contained harmful ingredients while subsidising healthier products.
Source: Derek Wanless, Securing Good Health for the Whole Population: Final report, HM Treasury (020 7270 4558) and Department of Health
Links: Report (pdf links) | DH press release | CPPIH press release | HDA press release | BMA press release | King's Fund press release | NHS Confederation press release | SCMH press release | RCP press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2) | Guardian report (3)
Date: 2004-Feb
A think-tank report said that the debate over the future of healthcare had ignored the 'critical assets' that the National Health Service already possessed - its patients and their neighbours, and its frontline staff.
Source: David Boyle, Molly Conisbee, and Sarah Burns, Towards an Asset based NHS: The missing element of NHS reform, New Economics Foundation, available from Central Books (020 8986 5488)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2004-Feb
