In a speech to the NHS Confederation’s annual conference yesterday, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens announced the new intervention scheme.
Under the ‘success regime’ plan, NHS England, Monitor, and the Trust Development Authority will take action to improve services in Essex, North Cumbria and Northern, Eastern and Western Devon.
Stevens said the aim was to improve care and sustainability of services for patients. These areas have been chosen as they face some of the most significant challenges in England.
He highlighted that the NHS Five Year Forward View, published last year, set out a vision for the future of the NHS, including how it would develop new models of care to get better value for money.
However, there were areas where the conditions for transformation do not yet exist, and the interventions were needed to address “deep-rooted and systemic issues”.
These regions will be given additional support through both management assistance and additional funding to develop plans that cross organisational boundaries, with NHS England, Monitor and the TDA then working to implement any necessary changes.
Action will be taken in Devon to improve the coordination between hospital trusts, community and mental health services, commissioners and local authorities.
In North Cumbria, the bodies will work with the area’s two hospital trusts, clinical commissioning group and Cumbria County Council to develop a single strategic plan for the local health and care system. This will look to address the financial challenges in the health economy, as well as examining governance and other issues such as recruitment and retention.
In Essex, the regime will focus on the quality, financial and operational challenges which put the sustainability of health and care services at risk in the region. In particular, it will seek to address the specific workforce challenges across primary and secondary care in the local health economy.
