Health White Paper on one slide

21 February 2021 by Karl Milner

This is a brilliant piece of work from Mike. He has taken the complex and made it understandable. Download the slide here: White Paper1

The DHSC White Paper is a long read, if you have the time and speak fluent NHS then you should read the primary source, it’s an important document; if not then this guide might help you plug in to what will be happening to health in the UK, very soon.

Even if you’re well versed in all things NHS manager this way of thinking about the content of the paper might help. Four organising themes lie beneath: CONTROL, CONNECT, PROMOTE and PROTECT. As Mike explains many of these are the obvious consequence of COVID-19 but also are a revision away from the internal market policy and it aligns the UK with international evidence based policy.

Really interesting nuggets in each bucket too. In the words of Paddy McGuinness might say “the power is now in your hands (Matt Handcock)”. This paper gives Whitehall far more direct control of the NHS and pulls in the power of FT boards and their ability to “cock a deaf-un” and display truculent behaviours.

The paper rolls back the the Lansley reforms – it is far more about connection and cooperating through systems than competing centres of excellence. Less Liberal and local far more centralised and Socialist? Competition never sat comfortably with the NHS but what will this mean for the future income streams of FT hospital boards and private health providers.

And yes, we’re back on the fluoridation bandwagon, it has to sneak in to every health White Paper but never makes the cut. Will it this time. Odds are not I would think but you can’t knock public health and the dental profession for trying.

The paper makes it a duty to explain and report on what NHS organisations are doing about ESG and protecting the environment and wider society … that is an excellent move forwards. Hopefully it will deliver a simplification of regulation and bureaucracy but that may be wishful thinking. And at last NHS Management gets recognised rather than ignored.

Let’s see how the content changes once the Government engage their opposition in Westminster – and that might not come from the official opposition given the direction of travel.

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