Lansley yields on local authority scrutiny powers for NHS services

The government will extend local authorities’ scrutiny powers to cover all NHS-funded services, the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has announced.

Councils will also have greater freedom in how these powers are exercised, according to the Department for Health’s Liberating the NHS: Legislative Framework and Next Steps.

The publication follows a consultation that received some 6,000 responses, and means the Health and Social Care Bill could be introduced in the New Year. Another key change as a result of the feedback is that commissioning of maternity services will now sit with GP consortia.

The Department for Health has also published the PCT Allocations and NHS Operating Framework for 2011/12, setting out what NHS organisations must focus on. This includes:

• “the need to continue to improve performance, for example on waiting times
• Primary Care Trusts streamlined into clusters, working with GP practices and emerging GP consortia on commissioning as well as reducing running costs, and
• the role of the NHS Commissioning Board, which will operate in shadow form from next year to ensure an efficient and effective transition.”

Lansley also announced that PCTs would receive £89 billion of funding to spend next year on commissioning services – an increase of £2.6 billion from 2010/11.

He said: “I am proud that we are living up to our commitment to the NHS – the total allocations to Primary Care Trusts will increase next year by 3% on average, with not less than 2.5% and up to 4.9% increase for individual PCTs. It provides a strong platform to sustain and improve NHS services.

“But in order to meet rising demands and deliver improving outcomes for patients, we need to get the best value from our protected health budget and make every penny count for patients. That means cutting out waste, reducing bureaucracy and simplifying NHS structures so that we are able to invest more in improving frontline care.”

The Health Secretary insisted that the government’s reform agenda was on track, pointing to last week’s unveiling of 52 GP consortia to act as pathfinders when it comes to commissioning services.

Lansley said he expected similar shadow forms of Health and Wellbeing Boards to emerge. “The Health and Social Care Bill will be presented early in the New Year,” he added. “Its purpose is clear: a more responsive, patient-centred NHS, which achieves outcomes that are among the best in the world. It provides certainty, through a clear legislative framework to support that ambition, with increased autonomy and accountability at every level in the NHS.”

The Local Government Association said it was pleased that many of its proposals had been included in the government’s latest announcement.

Cllr David Rogers, chairman of its community wellbeing board, said: “The LGA has consistently stressed that key to the shake-up’s success is local leadership and accountability. We called for the new Health and Wellbeing Boards to be given teeth and put on a statutory footing, and this has happened.

“We fought hard against plans to scrap separate health overview and scrutiny committees, and our arguments have hit home. Extending formal council scrutiny to cover all NHS-funded services is a positive move, as is the decision to give health and wellbeing boards powers to make sure NHS commissioners work together with town halls to improve the health of their communities.

“Our members were also concerned the new system may not be truly ready before the abolition of primary care trusts in 2013. That our calls to speed up the introduction of wellbeing boards and phase in new GP consortia with pilot schemes have been acted on is reassuring. And the move to make GP commissioning decisions more transparent can only be a good thing.”

Rogers said the LGA would await clarification on funding and would thoroughly scrutinise the Health and Social Care Bill when it is released “to ensure it mirrors the government’s stated intention of freeing up councils and communities to decide how best to improve health and wellbeing locally, without needless interference from the centre”.