Legal News

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced that for the first time, from 2016, new Ofsted-style ratings will be introduced to inform NHS patients how their local area’s health service is performing in crucial areas – including cancer services, dementia care, diabetes care, mental health services, learning disabilities services and maternity care.

The new ratings – broken down by local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) – will not only be based on local data, but will also be verified by experts in each field, including the Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, Harpal Kumar, who will verify cancer ratings.

The government’s Mental Health Taskforce Chairman Paul Farmer will lead on mental health ratings.

Initial ratings based on the current CCG assessments will be published in June 2016.

As part of the government’s transparency agenda, it is anticipated that this will spread best practice – and help bring about improvement where services are under-performing, to create a complete picture of care quality in the NHS.

The government hopes that by giving patients access to performance data, healthcare services in local towns and cities will be much more accountable to the local population than they have been.

Patients and clinicians will also benefit from a range of new measures to cut bureaucracy across the health system, saving time and money.

Up to 27% of GP appointments could potentially be avoided if there were more co-ordinated working practices between GPs and hospitals, wider use of primary care staff and better use of technology.

New measures will include immediately stopping pointless referrals from hospitals back to GPs, which account for around 2.5% of appointments.

By giving two hours a week back to each GP, there could be a 5% increase in workforce capacity – equivalent to 15 million appointments a year – the government estimates.

Other measures to save valuable resources which can be given over to patient care include introducing a single payment system that covers all transactions, to stop GP practices chasing different organisations for payment.

The aim is also to make GP surgeries paperless by 2018, ending the use of fax machine communications between hospitals and surgeries.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:

“This government believes in the NHS and its values – and we’re investing an extra £10 billion to transform services during this Parliament. A key part of that transformation is building a more patient-focused culture.

“We’ve made progress in creating a stronger partnership between doctor and patient – but we still put too many obstacles in the way of doctors and nurses wanting to do the right thing.

“By being more transparent than ever before about crucial services and freeing up more time for GPs to care, we really can make NHS patients the most powerful in the world,” Mr Hunt added.

Duncan Lewis Clinical Negligence Solicitors – No win no fee GP Negligence Claims

Duncan Lewis clinical negligence solicitors can advise NHS patients who have suffered injury as a result of GP negligence on how to make a no win no fee claim for compensation, including claims relating to:

• Cancer misdiagnosis
• Delays in diagnosis, treatment or referral
• Failure to diagnose
• Failure to take scans/X-rays
• Misdiagnosis
• Prescription errors
• Wrong medical treatment.

Clinical negligence claims have to be made within three years of injury or diagnosis of injury – children can make GP negligence claims up to the age of 21.

For expert legal advice on no win no fee GP Negligence Claims, call Duncan Lewis clinical negligence solicitors on 0333 772 0409.