CHRE Viewpoint #2

CHRE Viewpoint #2

This article is the second in our fortnightly series ‘CHRE Viewpoint’, which discusses topical issues in relation to health professional regulation.

Power to the people in healthcare

An emerging theme in public debate is the idea that people should drive the public services they use. In health, this means people are going to play a more active role in making decisions about their care in the future. For example, the White Paper for the health service in England, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, emphasised the role of people in health care. In his statement on the NHS White Paper, the Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley said, ‘Patients will be at the heart of the new NHS. Our guiding principle will be “no decision about me, without me”. We will bring NHS resources and NHS decision-making as close to the patient as possible.’

It is no longer enough to think of people in the health system as simply ‘patient’ or ‘consumer’ but as ‘citizens’. This view was proposed in a recent report by the 2020 Public Services Trust. Improving Health Outcomes: A Guide for Action, describes citizens in healthcare as people who develop high value relationships with professionals, recognise social responsibilities, and, jointly produce outcomes-based entitlements.

Historically, the relationship between health professionals and people put the former in a position of strength and the latter in a position of submissiveness. However, the sands are shifting. One example of this is the piloting of personal health budgets. This is a policy direction that we have supported. Allowing people to drive choices about their care is part of a patient-led and patient-centred health service. This builds on earlier policy initiatives that supported greater self-management for people with long-term medical conditions.

A patient-led and patient-centred health service requires engaged and well-informed citizens. For CHRE and health professional regulators this means doing all we can to ensure that people have the information to participate fully in their heath care. We have suggested that the registers made available online by regulators should contribute to informing patients in order to maximise their usefulness. Furthermore, we encouraged the health professional regulators to protect the professional titles their registrants use in to ensure that they retain meaning for the public.

More can still be done. Over the next year, we will investigate a range of options for a single portal for information about regulation and a guide to engage effectively with their health professionals. We hope it will also help people make choices and that people will be better equipped to participate fully in their healthcare.

Jason Arruda, Policy Analyst
29 July 2010