Our priorities for the next government

Posted:16 September 2014
Comments 6 comments

Publication details

Pages: 11

The general election will come at a pivotal time for health and social care. An unprecedented funding squeeze has left the NHS on the brink of financial crisis, while reductions in local government funding have led to significant cuts in social care services.

The next government must ensure that the focus on improving quality of care established in the wake of the Francis report is sustained. It will also need to set in train a transformation of services to meet the needs of patients more effectively. Looking further ahead, the big question is how to provide adequate funding to meet future demand for health and social care.

It is essential that politicians are honest with the public about the scale of these challenges. The stakes are high – without a clear mandate for change, the next government may find itself helpless to address them.

Our view of the challenges and priorities

We set out here our view of the key challenges and priorities for the next government:

Meeting the financial challenge
Transforming services for patients
Improving quality of care
A new approach to NHS reform

More of our work in the run-up to the next general election

View an illustrated guide to our 12 priorities
See our online resources around our priorities for the next government
Read Chris Ham's blog: The deafening silence on the funding of health and care must be challenged
See what the main parties are saying about health and social care with our general election tracker
Find out more about our work ahead of the next election

Comments

The priorities for any government will be to promote self-help and people looking after themselves better. We believe more effort should be focused on building people's connections with their local community organisations in order to promote self-help. Our website http://www.useyourcommunity.com enables people to find their local community organisations and access them for services. We created our site because we found that many people did not realise there are local organisations in their area that they can turn to for support. Please raise awareness of the need for people to access their local organisations.

It would make sense to match patients with local services if they were of consistent quality and fit for purpose. Two families living in the same area are often treated completely differently and mostly this is down to how good the GP you are lucky enough to get an appointment with is. This also leads to conditions becoming more acute, as GPs are trying to save money and treating conditions locally which should be referred to a hospital, therefore, we in some cases, are achieving the exact opposite of that intended (ie reducing hospital admissions through A&E.

Hello. I have to do a short pitch next week and I am finding it difficult to find a short summary on the cost & effects of mental health problems in the UK. There is endless long papers on the internet but I just need the facts and reference to where they have come from. If you can help me at all, I would be most grateful.
Many thanks.
Julieanne Reel.

hello

can anyone direct me on where I might find information on people with mental health issues having/using a personal budget and what is or isn't effective. I am doing an essay on personalisation agenda and the impact on people with mental ill health. Thank you

5 years into retirement I think those still in health should stop being brainwashed and take a good look at our health service: we are continually told that it is the best but as I travel the world I have yet to find a worse one. I am in Morroco at present hence the lack of punctuation...indeed I am struggling a little with the keyboard: Morrocans have social policy that works and is very different than that which I understood: free education from 5 to 16 support for those unable to work and free hospital care when required. I believe we need honest unbiased research into the best affordable care then support to make it happpen.

The problem with mental health related disorders is that the help in the community is virtually non-existent, not until people get to the stage of the mental health acts that they receive help. Instead of building more mental health institutions. Focus on funding recovery centres in the community available to the public.
Prevention is better than the cure.
These centres would have a knock on effect to the general hospitals aswell and reduce people being held under the mental health acts.
Ultimately, this idea, over a long term period, would save the nhs millions if not billions of pounds.