More about consultation
Eminently sensible stuff about consultation from the DoH.
It recommends SHAs introduce a system of quality assuring proposals - similar to that used by the Office of Government Commerce for major public-sector procurement exercises - which would ensure that they were planned properly and fitted with national policy priorities.
What is needed is a willingness to listen & adjust policies to alleviate concerns, not an exercise in box-ticking. Gateway reviews only look at paper evidence of process, they are a first step & not adequate assurance.
An appendix sets out a framework which the letter says should be used by SHAs and trusts preparing for service consultations.
It would be nice to see these details, I will look out for them.
The letter also says primary care trusts should take a central role in leading reconfiguration. ‘PCTs should normally lead the preparation and consultation on service improvement proposals,’ it says.
With the new larger PCT’s this might be worthwhile as they are more likely to cover the right service areas. However the strategic planning capability will need beefing up. How do the other changes planned for PCT’s including the outsourcing of functions impact on this?
The review found high variation in the manner and success of reconfiguration consultations, even within the same area. Sir Ian Carruthers said: ‘The detail, style, format [and] language of consultation documents varies too much. When you read a lot of them, it is not clear what is being discussed.’
He was also critical of the excessive time taken by some consultations and urged trusts to be more realistic about the investment needed. His review stresses the need for clinical involvement at an early stage, co-ordination between reviews in the same area, a solid and fully agreed business case, closer involvement of the board and a proactive attitude to the media.
The public are not fools & neither are the clinicians. Yes, there will always be some dissent but informed consultation is always better than opaque policies promulgated by non-representative bodies.
Lets see how this pans out in the real world. We have early test cases with quite a few IS contracts due shortly, some of which are already causing disquiet.
Meanwhile, some of that consultation might have been useful here.
NHS East of England has scrapped a regional emergency care network, leading to the loss of seven posts and sparking criticism from emergency care specialists.
The cash-strapped strategic health authority has recommended primary care trusts withdraw funding for the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge emergency care network. In late January the SHA e-mailed network members saying it would be wound up at the end of March.
The SHA also recommended PCTs stop funding a computerised capacity and activity monitoring system that allows co-ordination between hospital trusts and ambulances. Talks were under way this week between acute and ambulance trusts to try to save the service.
The Department of Heath recommends all areas should have an emergency care network to oversee urgent care transformation.
The decision to pull PCT funding from the system was because it would have been costly to roll out across the whole SHA area.
PCTs felt they were funding something that benefited the acute side….
Tell me again about integrated service planning, consultation & the NHS not being in deficit. Short termism rules.
April 20th, 2007 at 10:51 am
[...] there a Department of Health report just recently urging better [...]