By David Williams
12 July 2010
GPs are expected to be given control of commissioning hospital treatments in this afternoon’s health white paper.
The paper, Liberating the NHS, is being billed by the government as the biggest shake-up of health policy since the NHS was set up more than 60 years ago.
If passed into law, it will mean that £80bn of public money – the majority of the NHS budget – will be controlled by GPs for the first time.
The future for primary care trusts, which currently commission acute services, is uncertain this morning. A spokesman for the NHS Confederation, which represents the bodies, told Public Finance that it was not clear if PCTs would be scrapped altogether or would carry out a stripped-down oversight role.
The white paper will be published today following a ministerial statement to Parliament at 3:30pm.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley also revealed over the weekend that he intends to make much more information available to patients about the quality of services and individual consultants.
Although patients already have some choice over where they are treated, they would be able to make more informed decisions if they could compare providers, Lansley argues.
He also plans to save £1bn by cutting bureaucracy in the Department of Health, including scrapping the Food Standards Agency and absorbing its functions into the DoH and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
