The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) has published its plans to ‘bust bureaucracy’ across the NHS and empower frontline staff. The initiative follows the relaxing of bureaucracy during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, which enabled NHS teams to make and implement decisions more rapidly than has been previously been possible.
A call for evidence launched in July and the Department engaged with frontline staff and stakeholder groups. Addressing the NHS Confederation’s NHS Reset Conference this week, Health Secretary, Matt Hancock confirmed that the response to this process was “phenomenal”, with over 1,000 examples of excess bureaucracy that staff face every day reported.
The government’s plans are set out across eight priority areas:
• Data and information will be requested, shared and used intelligently
• System and professional regulation will be proportionate and intelligent
• Day-to-day staff processes will be simple, helpful and effective
• The government will legislate to make procurement rules more flexible
• GPs will have more time to focus on clinical work and improving patient care
• Appraisals will be streamlined and their impact increased
• There will be greater digitalisation of services
• A supportive culture is needed at national and local level.
Working with the NHS, the DHSC aims to accelerate legislative reform to make procurement more flexible and to promote collaboration across the health and care system. NHS England / Improvement will soon consult on how a new procurement regime would operate with a view to streamlining current procurement rules, reducing the need for unnecessary competitive tendering and reducing uncertainty for providers.
A new Data Alliance Partnership will aim to prevent time-wasting and costly duplication of data collection by collecting data once to be used multiple times. It will also provide a challenge to those who may seek to increase the burden of data collection on the frontline.
Effective sharing of data is also vital. Matt Hancock confirmed his vision is for “data to flow automatically so it does not require a human intervention and the same information which is used locally to manage a ward or a hospital, can then be properly and carefully, safely and ethically shared.” This sharing of data also brings more opportunity for system working.
A new CQC strategy for 2021 will adopt a population and systems approach to bring its regulatory approach up to speed with the evolving health and social care landscape. A draft strategy has already been published for discussion, ahead of formal consultation in Spring. The plan is to move away from periodic inspections, using data from a range of sources to assess quality of care and determine risk.
The DHSC will also launch a public consultation on detailed proposals to reform the professional regulation framework early next year.
Matt Hancock told the NHS Reset Conference: “I want to embed all of this – and more – for the long term. To build on our commitment to make health and care integration a reality and, where we can, remove the legal barriers that prevent our systems from working together as well as they might, giving us a legal door-stop that prevents us from slipping back into the silos and habits of the past.”
