29 July 2005
The NHS must go much further to help people with chronic long-term conditions to manage their health themselves, an influential think-tank has said.
The King's Fund believes expensive hospital admissions could be cut substantially and resources saved, if the health service put in place reforms to make treatment for chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes available in the community.
Its report, published on July 26, says health service professionals need training to understand the demands of self-managed care and patients must have access to better information and advice to make informed decisions.
In particular, the King's Fund says services need to be much more flexible. Out-of-hours care and continuity of treatment should be improved and patients should be able to fit appointments around their other commitments.
New technologies such as e-mail, text messaging and Internet-based health services should all be more widely available.
Report co-author Sara Corben said: 'We need services that are tailored around people's lives — not the other way round. We need better patient information, more flexible services and more skilled professionals to achieve this.'
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