03 October 2008
Lansley slates hospital rating system
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley has slammed the Healthcare Commission's performance measurement system for hospitals, saying it didn't tell patients what they needed to know.
Speaking at a fringe meeting at the Conservatives' annual conference in Birmingham on September 29, Lansley was critical of the colour-coded system the NHS watchdog employs to rate hospital performance. He said a green circle indicating that the hospital had stayed within budget did not help patients to make meaningful choices about where they want to be treated.
'Patients want to know about access, waiting times, outcomes, car parking charges, that sort of stuff,' he said.
He acknowledged that some hospitals were embracing the concept of 'patient choice' very actively but 'we should have a systematic process of measuring what happens to patients to support choice'.
Lansley said: 'The institutional mechanisms for listening in the NHS have been degraded over the years… The ability to link complaints to investigations has gone completely, but it should be an essential part of what the Healthcare Commission should do.'
But Miranda Kavanagh, head of communications at the commission, defended the colour-coding system, saying it had stimulated improvements. 'The things we have picked have improved. It's a case of picking the right things,' she told the meeting.
She added that the commission would be publishing an assessment of how well the NHS involves the public before the Care Quality Commission takes over its functions next year.
The Tories want to put in place better mechanisms to support public and patient involvement in the health service. Under a Tory administration, the NHS would become accountable to HealthWatch, a national consumer voice for patients.
Lansley's keynote speech to the conference, also delivered on September 29, stressed the 'empowering force of choice'.
'We will carry on the fight to ensure people will get the choice and local access they expect,' he told delegates.
Under a Conservative administration, patients would be able to register with a GP near their place of work rather than their home if they preferred and within five years, every patient, including expectant mothers, would have access to a single room.
'I am determined that the NHS will be equipped to meet standards of dignity and safety, and provide real choice to patients – the kind of choices which private patients take for granted.'
Councils could be given bigger revenue share
Shadow local government secretary Eric Pickles has hinted that the Tories will allow councils to keep some of the revenue they generate by attracting new business to their areas.
A Conservative green paper on localism is to be published next month and senior party figures have promised that it will seek to reinvigorate local government in Britain.
Pickles told a fringe meeting on September 30 that it was not possible to address economic development issues without also looking at local government funding.
'[Britain] is about the only western country where local authorities have no interest in their tax base, and we would clearly wish to do something with regard to incentivising people to keep the product of any additional housing or additional business they got in,' he said.
This view was backed up by Dermot Finch, director of the Centre for Cities think-tank. He told the meeting that he wanted councils to be given incentives to support business development, including the return of the business rate to local authority control.
'If councils work hard to attract and keep businesses in their area, they should be able to see the benefits of that and explain the benefits of that to their residents and spend that money locally on infrastructure and other priorities. That's a key part of a new settlement on financial devolution,' he told the Policy Exchange-hosted meeting.
Pickles was also fiercely critical of the effectiveness of regional development agencies. 'If you ask what difference have regional development agencies made to our country, the honest answer is that, on balance, they probably haven't done any damage,' he said.
Tories to press on with Blair's social reforms
A Conservative government would continue the Blairite social reforms, Oliver Letwin told delegates.
Speaking at a fringe meeting convened by the Independent newspaper, Letwin, who chairs the party's policy review, said the Tories would do 'what Blair would like to have done'.
He paid tribute to the policies developed by education minister Lord Adonis and the government's welfare adviser David Freud. 'We are indebted to Adonis,' Letwin said. 'He's designed the mechanics we need [for education reform].'
The per-pupil funding system enshrined in the Dedicated Schools Grant would make Conservative ambitions for more academies an easy reality without incurring any extra spending commitments.
'New academies will have to be funded entirely out of Dedicated Schools Grants, taking money from school X and giving it to school Y.'
Letwin also said that a Conservative government would implement the Freud reforms, using private and third sector organisations to get unemployed people into work.
'This is what James Purnell would like to do, but he is only doing one-tenth of it. We will do ten-tenths of it.'
PFoct2008
