25 January 2008
Local authorities' health overview and scrutiny committees' powers should be strengthened but councillors and MPs should not decide which treatments are funded by the health service, the NHS Confederation said this week.
Its report, Principles for accountability: putting the public at the heart of the NHS, published on January 23, says health service organisations want and need to be more accountable to patients and local voters. However, the government should not attempt to achieve this through structural reform — the latest annual health check showed that reorganised primary care trusts did not always perform as well as the rest of the NHS.
Instead, PCTs should improve their relationships and information-sharing with local authorities.
Examples of new powers could include allowing councillors on health overview committees to scrutinise the appointment of chairs and non-executives to NHS boards.
The report also says that the accountability structures introduced last year need time to become established.
A Mori poll conducted for the confederation found that most of the public do not want MPs and local councillors to take decisions about which treatments are funded by the NHS.
PFjan2008
