RCoA responds to implementing the NHS Long Term Plan – proposals for possible changes to legislation

The Long Term Plan sets an ambitious course for the NHS and we welcome the aim of this consultation to amend legislation which creates barriers to the integration of services.

The RCoA has supported better integration of services since the inception of the 44 STPs outlined in NHS planning guidance published in December 2015. The King’s Fund noted that the development of STPs and their underlying goals represented ‘…a decisive shift from the focus on competition as a means of improving health service performance in the Health and Social Care Act 2012’.

We believe that the RCoA’s initiatives in perioperative medicine, providing a clearer pathway of care from the moment the patient is considered for surgery until they have fully recovered, can provide better patient care, shortened hospital admissions and improved efficiency in the provision of elective surgery.

Perioperative medicine closely aligns with the goal of enabling better integration across health and social care systems and we support legislative changes which facilitate this. We recommend however that any decisions made around the legal framework for integrated services must have at their heart the best interest of patients and that clinicians must be fully involved in the development, governance and delivery of integrated care systems.

You can read the full response here.