Health Secretary: mutualised Patient-led Commissioning an “interesting” idea
Elliot Bidgood, 22 October 2013
There were encouraging noises in the Commons today when the Conservative MP Steve Baker urged the Health Secretary to consider our recent paper calling for patient-led commissioning groups in the NHS.
Jeremy Hunt said the idea was “interesting”, while stressing that he wanted to give current coalition reforms a chance to bed in first. You can see the exchange here (Baker’s question was 16th in the running order) and the paper, by Anton Howes, is available here.
Baker, a strong supporter of the Howes proposal, highlighted how it resurrects patient-led cooperatives to hold the medical establishment to account. Noting that “more and more voices are asking for more patient engagement”, Baker argued that this new approach could help “close this gap.”
Encouragingly, Hunt noted Baker’s longstanding commitment to patients and said that “I think the ideas in that paper are interesting and I would respect them, but I would suggest given that we have brand new commissioners and brand new inspectors going out this year I think we should see how the current reforms work first.” On top of a recent coalition announcement of a review into NHS mutualism, Hunt’s positive response shows that the idea of harnessing mutualism to strengthen engagement in the NHS is increasingly gaining traction.
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