NHS reforms ‘will have little effect on patients’

The Health and Social Care Act, which became law after a tortuous passage through Parliament, is expected to cost the taxpayer between £1.5bn and £1.6bn to implement.

But Nick Black, Professor of health services research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that when the reforms come into force on April 1 patients will not notice a great difference in services offered to them.

The main aims of the health reforms were to make the NHS more accountable to patients and to release front-line staff from excessive bureaucracy and top-down control.

One of the biggest changes is the move from primary care trusts (PCTs) to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), which will be led by GPs and other clinicians who will take on responsibility for commissioning 
care.

“On April 1st patients won’t notice any great difference in the services available and that they receive,” said Prof Black.

“In essence, CCGs will commission care locally instead of PCTs – not that patients have even heard of such bodies.

“While it is hoped that commissioning has a stronger clinician involvement, the decisions made are unlikely to be strikingly different from the current ones because there isn’t much room to manoeuvre.”

But the Department of Health said CCGs are already improving the care of patients.

“The changes we’ve made also encourage better integration between health and social care services,” a spokesman said.

“Our reforms give doctors and nurses the power and the freedom to provide healthcare services that they know their local population need.”