Support for Conservative health policy announcement

Conservatives today announced a new health policy that would see the National Health Service focus less on targets and more on health outcomes to offer patients a better standard of care, and incentivise and enable GPs to take responsibility for the entire progress of a patient’s treatment.

Under the new plans being set out today in Bristol by Conservative leader David Cameron, and Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, family doctors would have the power to run their own budgets and decide where their patients are treated.

Cllr Andy Morgan, Councillor for Hulton Ward and Chairman of Bolton Councils Health Scrutiny Committee added:

“We must move away from "one size fits all" targets, which are centrally imposed.  The NHS should be given freedom to make clinical decisions, but be accountable for the outcome.  We propose to use measures of health outcome which reflect the quality of service provided from start to finish of care.  

“The family doctor service is central to the way the NHS should work. We need them to have incentives to deliver the best outcomes for patients and to be able to do so by controlling budgets for their patients. Giving the family GP more responsibility will mean they can combine clinical decisions with accountability to their patients.”