NHS Long Term Plan – Easy Guide and what about social care?
Find out more about the NHS' new ten year plan and what it means for your health
Healthwatch have been asked to engage with local people about the plan and we will be doing this in partnership with the local CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group).
Below is our 'easy guide' to the 'NHS Long Term Plan':
- 4% per year increase (on average) in NHS funding for the next five years (June 2018 promise).
- Gives priority to cancer, cardiovascular disease, maternity and neonatal health, mental health (see separate section below), stroke, diabetes and respiratory care. There is also a strong focus on children and young people’s health.
- These priorities also relate to health inequalities – which are mentioned in a major way for the first time in an NHS overall plan of this sort. UK performance in tackling inequality linked to these priority areas lags behind many other wealthy countries.
- Integration of health and social care mandated through ICS’s – Integrated Care Systems. These will be new partnerships and are likely to replace the existing STP’s – Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships. There will be one CCG = Clinical Commissioning Group per ICS. If we had one ICS for Sussex all the existing CCG’s would merge or be disbanded and be replaced by one big CCG.
- No extra money for social care and we still await Green Papers to be published on Social Care and another on Prevention. Healthwatch Brighton and Hove contributed to the Healthwatch England evidence and submission for the Social Care Green Paper.
- There will be a “duty to collaborate” between NHS providers and commissioners and this may lead to less competition between providers in the NHS.
- GP’s will join to form primary care networks – groups of neighbouring practices typically covering 30–50,000 people. These networks will have a single fund through which resources will flow. Primary care networks will be expected to take a proactive approach to managing population health and from 2020/21 will assess the needs of their local population to identify people who would benefit from targeted, proactive support.
- The plan includes large sections on improving workforce and making better use of digital technology.
