OVERVIEW

With treatment costs rising and demand rising, the health service has to change. Despite the controversy around the healthcare reforms, there is no option to carry on doing the same things in the same way. That, simply, is no longer affordable. People are living longer, long-term conditions are increasing and the NHS has been tasked with the tightest budget settlement it has ever faced.

A focus on patient choice, delivering innovative, tailored services and ensuring good value can all help contribute to improved outcomes and efficiencies. Integrated care and joined-up commissioning have the potential to provide high-quality services. By putting the patients' needs first, services can prevent patients being 'passed like a parcel' from one part of the system to another. Clinical commissioning groups will have the power to design new services around patient needs. GPs, in particular, are taking on responsibility for individual patients, and for that person's journey through the health system. Better collaboration, partnership working and integration across local government and the NHS at all levels could ensure a more responsive and efficient system of care.

The restructuring of the health service has raised concerns that integration might be hampered by the drive for increased competition. Choice and competition are seen as powerful means to drive up quality and ensure good value for taxpayers' money. Innovative new health providers can offer more choice to patients, allowing them to choose the best service for their own needs. Whether this is from an NHS, third sector or independent provider should not matter; what benefits the patient most certainly does. However, more competition and more providers will almost certainly add more complexity to a service that is already considered too bureaucratic.

Creating a level playing field for providers is one aspect of the issue. Also there must be analysis about how our health services are accessed, commissioned, managed and outcomes of care are monitored. The monitor's core responsibility is to ensure that patients' interests must always come first and HealthWatch patient groups will be looking to increase patient involvement across the NHS to raise feedback over care. Will clinical commissioning groups have the freedom to pursue innovative and locally responsive approaches to delivering care? Can we define what high-quality care looks like? What does an NHS that is focused on patient outcomes mean for clinical commissioning groups and management of our services?

New service models, innovations and cutting-edge technologies might help to usher in a new age of individualised care. Pilot programmes for personal health budgets are currently under way with the aim of giving patients more flexibility, choice and control over the care they receive. Over half of the primary care trusts who are involved in the programme are developing care plans that meets an individual's health needs as well as discussing the service options and amount of money available to meet those needs. The Healthy Lives Healthy People White Paper set out an expanded role for community pharmacies in improving public health, recognising the accessibility such services can bring to communities. Meanwhile continuous innovation in the diagnostics field is helping to deliver improved treatments and early interventions that can improve quality of care and take more expensive treatment costs out of the system. What can our health service do to encourage innovation and support collaboration? How can these different services work together practically around the patient needs?

A Patient Centred Approach: Providing Personalised Care and Delivering Value will be a must-attend event for all senior health professionals and practitioners tasked with modernising and improving health services. The informative programme will include high-profile speakers and practical case studies that will explore how our healthcare services can put the patient at the heart of decision-making, improve outcomes and tailor care to meet individual needs.