Announcements

The Government Announces Priorities for Health & AHPN Reflects on Emerging Opportunities for African CBOs

Date: 14-06-2010

GOVERNMENT’S PRIORITIES FOR HEALTH & THE EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES FOR AFRICAN COMMUNITY BASED ORGANISATIONS [CBOs]

On 8 June 2010, in speech, titled ‘My ambition for patient-centred care’, Andrew Lansley CBE, Secretary of State for Health, highlighted the government’s ambitions and priorities for health. According to Lansley, the government’s ambition is to achieve good health outcomes, excellence and quality health services. The government’s intention is to develop and deliver an early reform strategy that is consistent and sustainable, so that people [agencies and organisations] have a sustainable framework to work with and within.

The priorities are:

1: Patients must be at the heart of everything, not just as beneficiaries of care, but as participants, in shared decision-making.

2:  To continuously achieve improving outcomes, focus will be rigorous and consistent on achieving results for patients with no politically-motivated process targets.

3: Professionals will be empowered to deliver quality, innovative, productive and safe care

4: As a society, to do much better on the health and well-being of our families and our communities, by prioritising health and well-being and preventing ill-health more effectively. This is to ensure the achievement of good population wide health outcomes, good health services and reduction in health inequalities.

5: Health and social care should be integrated, to see the many links and connections between health and social care, and see care in its wider aspects, and support and empower people, so that they can exercise greater control over their care.

OPPORTUNITIES THESE GENERATE FOR CBOs

a.    Evidence: CBOs can generate and provide more evidence about patience care, patient experience and quality outcomes, and demonstrate how these contribute positively to these priorities. CBOs can start reporting and share these intelligence with hospitals, PCTs etc to influence service design and improvements at local level.

b.    Service development: CBOs can develop and provide services that bring together all aspects of health, social care, wellbeing and community in one place. Health is an holistic experience, therefore, CBOs can start to engage with broader public health, well being and preventive agendas and services that support the integration of health and social care.

c.    Advocacy: This role needs to be better intensified and sophisticated, by developing a culture of active responsibility, so that African communities in the UK can be empowered to ask, to challenge and to intervene. There is a role for CBOs to become conduits for the voices and needs of African communities, acting as care advocates to present what matter most to the communities, ensuring services are seen from the communities’ point of view, listen to and interpret/translate the needs of the communities and other service providers.

d.    System & care navigators: Some people from African communities in the UK will require agencies that can guide them through the system in making choices and translating services and provisions. This will have the added benefit of  driving the further integration of hospital and community services where it most matters, as “…patients don’t talk about ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ care, they see it simply as treatment and care for the problem they have, whether at home or in hospital”. 

e.    Quality: There is an opportunity for CBOs to inform and define quality from the African communities’ perspective. CBOs can empower communities through access to information, and to interact better and productively with clinicians. Therefore the communities will be able to use information to secure quality of care and service and collectively drive improvements in standards and outcomes.

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