NHS: Government plans to reverse Cameron-era reforms

The government is planning to reverse reforms of the NHS in England introduced under David Cameron in 2012, a leaked document suggests. 

The changes would aim to tackle bureaucracy and encourage health services from hospitals to GP surgeries and social care to work more closely. The draft policy paper also says the health secretary would take more direct control over NHS England.

The reforms by Mr Cameron's government in 2012 saw the creation of NHS England - to run the health service - and the scrapping of primary care trusts in favour of GP-led clinical commissioning groups to organise local services.

Under the latest proposals, set out in a leaked document published by health news website Health Policy Insight, there will be "enhanced powers of direction for the government" to "ensure that decision makers overseeing the health system at a national level are effectively held to account".

Instead of a system that requires competitive tendering for contracts - sometimes involving private companies, the NHS and local authorities will be left to run services and told to collaborate with each other, says the draft White Paper, designed to set out proposed legislation.

There will also be more focus on GPs, hospitals and social care services working together to improve patient care.

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Source: BBC News, 6 February 2021