The NHS Constitution: Implications and challenges

The Draft Constitution starts with 'The NHS belongs to the people' . It follows with a statement of the principles and values on which the service is based and a range of 'rights' and 'responsibilities' for the public, patients and staff. A further set of 'pledges' is made which the NHS will 'strive to deliver'. Key issues of co-payments and the accountability of PCTs are not yet resolved, and many questions remain unanswered. In this seminar we will explore:

• what these terms mean
• how the 'rights' are different from existing legal obligations
• what will happen if pledges are not met
• whether patients who do not meet their responsibilities will forfeit their rights
• if is this a new dawn for the NHS or a steady evolution of well-established values
• what the Constitution has left out.

We will look at how boards could use the NHS Constitution to create a better understanding with service users and as a platform for service improvement. We will also examine how boards can ensure that it is a charter for patients and staff, not a job-creation scheme for lawyers.

Given by

Professor Jonathan Montgomery, University of Southampton

Prior to his appointment as Chair of Hampshire PCT, Professor Jonathon Montgomery was Chair of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Strategic Health Authority from November 2004 until it was dissolved in June 2006. He was previously Chair of Hampshire Partnership NHS Trust and before that of Southampton Community Health Services NHS Trust. He is also Chair of the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards.

Jonathan is Professor of Health Care Law at the University of Southampton, where he has worked since 1984. He teaches health care law and ethics at the schools of law, medicine, nursing and midwifery, and health. He is author Health Care Law and (with Priscilla Alderson) Health Care Choices: making decisions with children. He has sat on a number of working parties on health care law and ethics.

Currently, Jonathon is a member of the Medical Ethics Committee of the British Medical Association, the Ethics Advisory Group to the Care Records Development Board (part of the NHS Connecting for Health programme), and a working party on Public Health Ethics convened by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. He is on the editorial board of the Medical Law Review and is a Director of the Institute of Medical Ethics. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in 2005.