‘Ambitious plans’ to restructure health and social care

Health Minister Simon Hamilton has detailed progress on what he described as his ‘ambitious and radical plans’ for restructuring the HSC.

Health Minister Simon Hamilton

Following a period of consultation where the Minister outlined a number of reform proposals, there was a clear endorsement for the need to change.

The Minister said, “Last year, I announced my intention to remodel the administrative structures of Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland to make them more streamlined and to reduce complexity. I proposed that:

• the Health and Social Care Board cease to exist;
• the Department would take firmer strategic control of the system;
• Trusts would have more responsibility for the planning of care in their areas and have the operational independence to deliver it; and
• the Public Health Agency would be retained with a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention.

“The response to the recent consultation is a clear endorsement for the need to change.”

The Minister continued, “While there is broad agreement that our current structures are too complex, too bureaucratic and too slow to support transformation, there is a concern about where responsibility for commissioning of services will reside in the future after the Board is gone.

“I completely understand these concerns. However I am still convinced that we have too many layers of bureaucracy in our system. So, with the objective of eliminating bureaucracy and aiding innovation, I confirm that the Board will go, with system level strategic planning and decision making for the bulk of Health and Social Care services passing to the Department rather than our Trusts.

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“I still want to see our Trusts take on additional responsibility for care in their areas. I want them to have increasing autonomy. And I want them to be held more accountable for what they do.”

The Minister also explained that he intended to further reduce bureaucracy by giving Trusts greater authority to spend their budgets in order to best maximise the impact for their patients and clients. “I expect Trusts to be fully accountable for the outcomes that they deliver and to live within the resources that they have.

He added, “Primary care and the voluntary and community sector play a central and critical role in planning and delivering world class health and social care services, and therefore our re-modelled administrative structures need to enable and underpin the integration which will be so vital in the future.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Mar 30 2016. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry