“My Ministers will bring forward legislation to empower the NHS
to innovate and embrace technology. Patients will receive more
tailored and preventative care, closer to home.”
The purpose of the Bill is to:
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Lay the foundations for a more integrated, efficient and
accountable health and care system - one which allows staff
to get on with their jobs and provide the best possible
treatment and care for their patients.
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Give the NHS and local authorities the tools they need to
level up health and care outcomes across the country,
enabling healthier, longer and more independent lives.
The main benefits of the Bill would be:
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Delivering on the proposals put forward by the NHS in its own
Long Term Plan, while building on the lessons learned from
the successful vaccine rollout.
-
Making it easier for different parts of the health and care
system, including doctors and nurses, carers, local
government officials and the voluntary sector to work
together to provide joined-up services.
-
Removing bureaucratic and transactional processes that do not
add value, thus freeing up the NHS to focus on what really
matters to patients.
-
Enabling the system to most effectively prevent illness,
support our ageing population, tackle health inequalities,
tailor support to the needs of local populations, and enhance
patient safety and quality in the provision of healthcare
services.
-
Ensuring the NHS and the wider system can respond swiftly to
emerging issues while being fully accountable to the public.
The main elements of the Bill are:
-
Driving integration of health and care through the
delivery of an Integrated Care System in every part of
the country.
-
Ensuring NHS England, in a new combined form, is
accountable to Government, Parliament and taxpayers while
maintaining the NHS's clinical and day-to-day operational
independence.
• Banning junk food adverts pre-9pm watershed on TV and a total
ban online.
• Putting the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch on a
statutory footing to deliver a fully independent national body to
investigate healthcare incidents, with the right powers to
investigate the most serious patient safety risks to support
system learning.
Territorial extent and application:
• The Bill will extend and apply UK wide, with its substantive
provisions applying in the main to England.
Key facts
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More and more people face morbidity and multiple diseases.
Around 20 per cent of our lives are spent in poor health,
which has been increasing in recent years and is likely to
continue in future. The proportion of people aged 65+ with
four or more diseases is set to almost double by 2035, with
around a third of these people having a mental health
problem.
-
Life expectancy at birth in the UK is above the OECD average
at 81.4. Death rates from cardiovascular disease have fallen
by 60 per cent since 1990 in England, compared to around 50
per cent in the OECD. The UK has the 4th lowest adult
diabetes prevalence rate amongst OECD countries.
-
As of 2020, around 94 per cent of GP practices rated good or
outstanding by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), around 82
per cent for NHS mental health core services and 85 per cent
of adult social care providers.
-
The UK is recognised internationally as a world-leader in
driving the patient safety agenda in healthcare.
-
As of 8 May 2021, over 35 million people across the UK have
now received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. In the
early stages of the response, the NHS COVID-19 Data Store was
established, which safely brought together accurate,
real-time information necessary to inform decisions in
response to the current pandemic in England.
-
In October 2020 the Government announced the creation of 40
hospitals and a further competition for 8 new schemes for
competition by 2030. The Government has invested record sums
in our NHS, both before and during this pandemic. We are
delivering on our historic long-term settlement for the NHS,
which will see NHS funding increase by £33.9 billion by
2023-24. We have enshrined this in law.
