By Lucy Phillips
26 July 2010
Plans to turn all NHS trusts into foundation trusts by 2013 and expand the role of the regulator were published today.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley pledged to free the NHS ‘from the shackles of central control’, giving greater freedoms to trusts, which will all gain foundation status in the next three years.
The statutory borrowing limit for the trusts will be removed and the private income cap abolished. It will also be easier for them to merge with or take over other trusts, and employees will be given opportunities to run them.
A new remit for foundation trust regulator Monitor was also set out in the document, Regulating health care providers. It will become a full blown economic regulator for the NHS, responsible for licensing health service providers, setting tariff prices, promoting competition and supporting health care commissioning.
‘Competition and patient choice together will improve services, stimulate innovation and increase productivity,’ said Lansley. ‘In its new expanded role, Monitor will ensure a level playing field that rewards the best and most efficient providers that continuously improve services for the people they serve – the patients.’
Monitor chair Steve Bundred welcomed the proposals. ‘Decisions are best made locally – close to the patient and by the people who actually deliver the services – rather than in Whitehall. That’s why independent NHS foundation trusts are best placed to deliver high-quality care for patients,’ he said.
