Independent Review of Whole Person Care compiled for the Labour Party

Andy Burnham, Shadow Secretary of State for Health commissioned an independent review led by Sir John Oldham - a former high ranking NHS manager - to produce proposals relating to Whole Person Care - i.e. the integration of health and social care. The review was for the Labour Party but was not funded by them or indeed by anyone apparently. It has just been published as

One Person supported by people acting as One Team from organisations behaving as One System

and is available on the Labour policy website Your Britain

Most of the team are from an NHS background, including Professor Hilary Chapman, Director of Nursing at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Two are from local government (though one of these is a trained nurse) and one from the Alzheimer's society. At first glance the thrust of the review seems to move towards bringing social care into the NHS structure.

In the introduction the review comments " The emphasis of this report is recommendations for an incoming government in 2015. They are built on three themes: giving meaningful power to people using the health and care system; reorienting the whole system around the true needs of the population in the 21st century; and, addressing the biases in the established system that prevent necessary change happening. For too long health and social care have been considered separately. They are inextricably linked. However we do not believe the answer includes yet another major structural reform at this time. The scale of recent reforms so damaged the NHS and care system that we believe it would not survive intact from a further dose of structural change. We are not saying that the current structures are right, or that they won’t need to change in the future – they aren’t and they will. We reflect some of that in our recommendations on national organisations. However, relationships and culture trump structures. We should not focus now on what the structures are, but the relationships among them, the people who work in them, and what they do. This is the essence of care and what really matters. These changes may not be as tangible and headline grabbing as scrapping and creating organisations. Arguably they are, taken together, more radical."

The recommendations are significant, far reaching and controversial. They include the renaming of NHS England as Care England which would be the strategic lead behind which other NHS organisations including Monitor should aligned themselves. The report recommends that the S75 regulations (on competition) be abolished.

The report is 92 pages and needs careful reading but the issues it raises are probably worth openly debating in the city. Comments and more information are welcome.