The NHS operating framework provides the blueprint for the NHS in England. Pf examines its objectives around quality and reform.
The Operating Framework for the NHS in England 2012/13 is an important document for UK medical sales professionals. It outlines the national priorities, system levers and mechanisms that the NHS in England must focus on to improve patient care. The strategic framework details expectations for the NHS’ ongoing efficiency challenge and the transition to the new commissioning and management system. It sets out the planning, performance and financial requirements for NHS organisations and the basis on which they will be held to account. With QIPP imperatives at the heart of the strategy, proactive pharmaceutical companies that can demonstrate an ability to help NHS customers deliver efficiencies and improve qualities in areas of national priority will be best placed to succeed.
The Framework identifies four key themes for NHS organisations in 2012/13:
- Putting patients at the centre of decision making in preparing for an outcomes approach to service delivery
- Completing the final year of transition to the new system
- Accelerating the delivery of the QIPP challenge
- Maintaining a strong grip on services and financial performance.
Quality - a focus on outcomes
The Operating Framework says that the NHS’ model of delivery must be overhauled in 2012/13 to become a system driven by quality and outcomes. It identifies the Outcomes Framework as the catalyst for this – with its focus on clinical outcomes and the reduction of health inequalities driving changes in culture, behaviour and service delivery. The Outcomes Framework sets out the improvements against which the NHS
Commissioning Board will be held to account from 2013/14.
These measurements are set out within five domains:
Domain 1: preventing people from dying prematurely.
Domain 2: enhancing quality of life for people with long-term conditions.
Domain 3: helping people recover from episodes of ill health or following injury.
Domain 4: ensuring people have a positive experience of care.
Domain 5: treating and caring for people in a safe environment and protecting them from avoidable harm.
The Operating Framework details a range of indicators for each domain, all of which are explored in the NHS Outcomes Framework. These will be supported by NICE quality standards, which provide definitions of what high-quality care should look like for a particular pathway of care. The document also advises NHS organisations to meet the service specific outcomes strategies that have already been published in areas such as mental health, cancer, COPD, asthma and long-term conditions.
Each domain in the NHS Outcomes Framework has a strong relevance to pharma, whether through the development of medicines to treat disease in priority areas, or via collaborative service design to move care closer to patients’ homes and reduce hospital admissions. Organisations that are able to show how their innovations can improve a care pathway or be used as part of a redesigned service will enjoy
more positive NHS engagement.
The Operating Framework identifies dementia and care of older people as a key priority, and sets clear goals to integrate health and social care. It also highlights examples of initiatives where NHS organisations have successfully improved services in line with each of the four key elements of QIPP; quality, innovation, productivity and prevention.
Reform - the transition blueprint
The Operating Framework outlines the key milestones for the reorganisation of the NHS. Whilst the headlines are widely known, it is interesting to track current progress against a timetable that was set out many months before the Health & Social Care Act was passed. The Framework notes that by
the end of 2012/13:
“The NHS will have transformed the commissioning landscape into one focused on local clinical decision
making, with the development and authorisation of CCGs, assisted by commissioning support vehicles and overseen by the NHS Commissioning Board. Local authorities will take the lead role in public health, alongside the new Public Health England. Central to the new system will be the establishment of Health & Wellbeing Boards (HWB), who will provide local systems leadership across health, social care and public health. Alongside this, developments will continue to the provider landscape, through the extension of Any Qualified Provider (AQP), progress with the NHS Foundation Trust (FT) pipeline and the establishment of the new NHS Trust Development Authority.”
Key 2012/13 objectives in the transition are as follows:
- PCTs and SHAs will remain statutory organisations until April 2013. They will be held to account on delivering performance and support the development of new organisations for clinical leadership. Clinical Senates and networks will be established
- PCTs will support CCG authorisation and the transition of power before March 2013
- HWBs will be established in shadow format, becoming statutorily operational from April 2013. They will act as the local system leader through JSNA and HWB Strategies
- CCGs must be coterminous with a single HWB ‘as far as possible’
- CCGs must: play an active role in planning and budgeting, develop relationships with local partners
including social care, deliver their share of the QIPP agenda and identify how to secure commissioning support services in line with their running cost allowance - Public Health England will become a statutory executive agency from April 2013
- NHS Trusts are expected to achieve FT status by April 2014
- PCT clusters should start to offer patients choice of AQP in at least three services that are local priorities. There should be a presumption of choice for most services from 2013/14.
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