NHS: Health and Social Care Act 2012

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

If I had to single out two or three things from that Act which have been of enormous and incomparable benefit, one would be the enhancement and promotion of clinical leadership within the system, which has happened as a result of the creation of clinical commissioning groups. The second is the creation of Public Health England and the transformation of public health delivery in this country. The third is the separation of elected politicians from the running of the health service, which has enabled the NHS to free itself up to look at innovation in a more creative way

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Earl not agree that if specialist secondary clinicians worked a more significant part of their time in primary settings in the community, this would be a welcome innovation across the country?

[Earl Howe]

I do agree. That idea is being taken up by a number of the vanguard sites, which are looking at the new models of care that were foreshadowed by the five-year forward view. It is, I think, the shape of things to come.