Helping people make informed choices about health and social care

Issue

Currently NHS patients can - in most circumstances - choose their GP or the hospital they’re referred to. And personal budgets are giving people more choice and control over their social care and support arrangements.

We think that introducing more choice will help people get the care and support that’s right for them, and make services more responsive to their needs. And we want everyone to have access to the information and advice they need to make the right choices for them.

Actions

Expanding choice and control

We’re making changes to both health and social care services to give patients and service users more choice and control.

Providing more information and advice

People can only make the right choices for them if they have the right information and advice. So we’re ensuring that more transparent information is available on health and social care services on the NHS Choices website.

Background

We set out our original proposals for expanding information and choice for NHS patients in the July 2010 white paper ‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’.

Since then we’ve run a number of consultations on NHS services, including:

‘Liberating the NHS: an information revolution’ (October 2010)
‘Liberating the NHS: greater choice and control’ (May 2012)
‘Liberating the NHS: no decision about me, without me (May 2012)

Our thinking has also been informed by reports like the NHS Future Forum’s report on choice and competition.

Plans for changing how social care is funded are based on recommendations from the Dilnot Commission on Funding of Care and Support, which published its report in July 2011.

We set out plans to provide more information about social care services - and make them more consistent across the country - in the 2012 white paper ‘Caring for Our Future’.

The ‘Power of information’ report, published in May 2012, has details of plans to make more information about health services available online.

Who we’re working with

From April 2013, NHS England will be responsible for developing guarantees on patient choice in the NHS and agreeing them with the Secretary of State for Health. They will also be responsible for getting advice from Monitor, the healthcare regulator, on how changes would affect competition in healthcare services.

We’re working with local councils to help them encourage a wider range of organisations to offer social care services in their area.

And we’re working with social care providers, service users and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to make sure that councils have the skills to identify the right services for local people.

Bills and legislation

New duties for parts of the NHS to offer more patient choice were passed into law with the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The act also gives Monitor a new role in promoting and regulating competition in healthcare services.

The Care Act published in 2014, provides the legal framework for changes to the social care system.

 

From:
Department of Health
The Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP

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