Introducing three feature articles to mark the anniversary:
On April 1 last year many new NHS organisations came into being – changing the way the NHS works. At the local level the Primary Care Trusts were abolished and the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) took responsibility for much of the commissioning of local health services.
It has been very busy year for the NHS – and not just for the CCGs as they start to turn their plans into reality.
The Wiltshire CCG’s pledge was to transform local services putting more care into the community and treating more people close to home and in their homes. This theme caught the drift of national health policy.
At just about every level in the NHS, the aim is now to keep people – especially older people – out of hospital for as long as possible.
However, nationally though the past year, there have been some mighty distractions and crises to confront. Not least of these has been the aftermath of the Mid-Staffordshire scandal.
But as so often, it is also about money: about how large the NHS budget is, how it is spent, how much its staff are paid and how much redundancy staff get when the service is reconfigured by central government.
Marlborough News Online has been following developments in Wiltshire. As we reach the end of the first year of the new order, we are publishing three feature articles on the present and future landscape – and how it will affect Wiltshire’s population.
First a look at the Wiltshire CCG and the NHS’ finances. Part Two looks ahead to one of the major changes that starts on April 1: the introduction of the joint CCG-and-Wiltshire-Council Better Care Fund for the ‘frail elderly’. And finally we see how hospitals – especially the GWH – are faring under the coalition government’s changes.
One thing is certain and that is that these issues will feature large and loud in next year’s general election campaign – and central to that will be money and whether the NHS can be kept free at the point of delivery. Already a £10 per person ‘poll tax’ has been suggested as a way to fill the funding black hole.
To read these three articles either click on the links above or go to Features.
For the NHS there’s no escape from perpetual change – and uncertainty
After NHS restructuring, the Better Care Fund is a real step change – or is it a leap in the dark?
How are hospitals like the Great Western coping with the new NHS – and how will it survive the Better Care Fund?
