Department of Health, 29 October 2015
- A new mandate to NHS England will take effect from April 2016. The mandate sets direction for the NHS, and helps ensure the NHS is accountable to Parliament and the public.
- The new mandate will be based on the priorities this Government believes are central to delivering the changes needed to ensure that free healthcare is always there whenever people need it most. The priorities for the health and care system as a whole are:
- Preventing ill health and supporting people to live healthier lives.
- Creating the safest, highest quality health and care service
- Maintaining and improving performance against core standards while achieving financial balance
- Transforming out-of-hospital care, ensuring services outside hospital settings are more integrated and accessible.
- Driving improvements in efficiency and productivity
- Supporting research, innovation and growth
- Proposals directly affecting CCGs include:
- New outcome measures at local CCG population level will complement the national NHS Outcomes Framework.
- CCG allocations will be set for three or more years.
- A new scorecard, developed by The Kings Fund, will provide transparency about comparative quality of care and outcomes for different CCG populations to support work on reducing variations in quality of care and outcomes at a local level.
- Transforming out-of-hospital care through joined up care across all service levels incorporating a vision for a 7-day NHS and transformation of out-of hospital care using whole system approaches to ensure people get the right care in the right place at the right time. For 2016/17 this would also mean the continuation of the Better Care Fund.
- New mental health access and waiting time standards to be embedded and expanded and crisis care to be improved for people of all ages.
- A consultation on the mandate will run from 29 October 2015 to 23 November 2015. Find out more and respond to this consultation here.
