National Voices' Policy and Campaigns

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The New Government

National Voices is playing an active role to help shape the health and social care agenda on behalf of our members. We will be responding to the new health White Paper. So far, the patient-friendly rhetoric has been great, but with potentially huge changes in prospect for the NHS, including the need to find £20 billion of savings, we think there is a big risk of harmful side-effects.

What do we think?

Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State, has said “no decision about us without us”. We want this to be reflected in the way the government takes forward its plans. We want to see the thinking on social care properly joined up with that on healthcare. We will also speak out about the wider impacts of the Government’s deficit reduction programme on health and well being. Our initial analysis of the coalition government’s programme is here.

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Whose NHS is it Anyway?
Sharing the Power with Patients and the Public

A new NHS Alliance report, created with the help of National Voices, calls on the NHS to share the power with patients and the public. 

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‘The patient will see you now: Rebalancing relationships between people who use services and those who provide them’
(24/06/10)

The Health Service Journal and the Health Foundation have published a supplement, 'The patient will see you now', which explores how changing the interaction between patients and service providers can be a driver for improving quality. National Voices took part in a roundtable discussion which fed into the above.

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SHARE THE POWER:
National Voices launches pre-election campaign
(11/03/10)

Health and social care are entering a period of political uncertainty and belt tightening. The risks to quality, safety and person-focus are clear.  If change is to be managed successfully, more power needs to be shared with patients and families.  National Voices is calling for:

  • Involving people earlier in decisions about service change and giving them a real say
  • Making it much easier for people to voice concern and give feedback
  • Tackling the continuing culture of medical paternalism

See our briefing paper and press release reporting our new opinion poll for more detail.  We will be working with Government, politicians, the NHS, regulators and the professions to seek these changes.   Contact us if you would like to support our campaign.

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National Voices sets out three tests to judge the success of NHS reform for patients

Patients’ and carers’ umbrella group National Voices has urged that the coming NHS spending squeeze be used as a catalyst for improvement in care and treatment, not cuts. Commenting on the Government’s latest publications setting out how much money the NHS has to spend(1), how it will be spent(2) and how services will be improved(3), National Voices acknowledges the scale of the challenge in maintaining a high quality and affordable NHS and believes that involving patients and local communities in the changes will be key.

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National Voices' response to the Social Care Green Paper consultation

National Voices has welcomed the opportunities presented by the consultation, but has raised concerns about the lack of specific details contained in the Green Paper. Members were opposed to the proposals to include other benefits as part of the funding stream for the new National Care System, and concerned over the lack of reference to other policy initiatives that may be impacted by the Green Paper's proposals.

Click here to read our response to the Social Care Green Paper consultation in full.

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Report from the National Voices' Party Conference dinners 2009: 'Assuring patient safety through regulation'

During the 2009 political party conference season, National Voices hosted a dinner discussion at each of the three main conferences, working in partnership with the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE), which provided guidance and advice in organising these dinners.  The theme of the dinners was ‘ensuring patient safety through regulation’, and participants were drawn from the health professional regulators, patient organisations, and respective political parties.

The main themes that emerged were: a confused and inconsistent regulatory landscape; a need for better patient engagement in regulation; better complaints systems; a better system for staff to voice concerns before they turn into whistleblowing issues.

Please click here to view the full report from the dinners.