Andrew Lansley was in full flow at the RSA this morning: the title of the lecture being ‘Improving health outcomes for all’ – except his speech was really about ‘what Alan Johnson hasn’t done’ and how Andrew hates targets. We only got onto what Andrew meant by health outcomes when he answered the final question of the morning. His vision is quite sensible: improved cancer survival rates, better stroke recovery rates, and well babies leaving hospital with their mothers after a good birth. But I hope he has some good ideas as to how to measure this stuff and hold health providers acountable.
On which topic I was electrified by one of the sessions at the King’s Fund World Class Commissioning event yesterday. We learnt that Somerset PCT ‘de-commissioned’ the NHS drug and alcohol services and commissioned Turning Point, a charity, to run them instead. That’s quite a vote of confidence in a charity. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting where the NHS services learnt that the business was being taken elsewhere. We were told they didn’t go gracefully…. But I took a lesson from this, which is if charities really can offer an excellent, well-evidenced service then they can step up to the tendering table and go for it. I wonder if Turning Point might offer other charities a masterclass in how to do it…..
