STRATEGIC HEALTHCARE COMMISSIONING

Strategic Healthcare Commissioning

Strategic Healthcare Commissioning

Introduction

Good healthcare commissioning is as holistic as good general practice. Specialized health promotion is an internationally recognized occupation and field of activity which has had a chequered history in England. After flourishing briefly in some areas in the early years of the New Labour government it has been in decline, in most parts of the country. The last survey of practice conducted in 2005 found that the specialized health promotion workforce was unevenly distributed and much in need of advocacy and development. Since then there has been another major reorganization of primary care trusts (PCTs) and a split between commissioning and provider functions. These are the main features of a healthcare commission. The commission need to focus on improving the outcomes of the for patients and communities with relation to healthcare plan. A good commission empowers the patient to shape his/her healthcare plans which supports them in an effective way.

Aspects Of Strategic Healthcare Commissioning

The research reveals that organizational structure has a major impact on the nature of health promotion activity. The split between commissioning and provider functions of PCTs has presented immense challenges to practitioners irrespective of the arm in which they placed, as one of the strengths of health promotion has always been its ability to straddle both strategic and operational levels and offer a joined-up approach to tackling the causes of ill health. For the specialized health promotion workforce, there has been a loss of identity and critical mass as the discipline increasingly reduced and fragmented, a trend that looks set to worsen following further reorganization and reductions in the public sector spending introduced by the new coalition government.

There has been concern for some time about the future of health promotion both in England and worldwide. Health promotion commission had a chequered history under the New Labour government with policies. It is to address health inequalities and build social cohesion sitting uncomfortably alongside an emphasis on individual behaviour change. Acknowledgement of specialized health promotion and its workforce has all but disappeared from policy discourse.

It explicit recognition of the health promotion discourse and specialist health promotion services was notably absent. Not one of the long list of neither health-promoting initiatives, nor any of the NHS, public health or social policy White Papers explicitly linked health promotion specialists with the new projects and programmes.

Assessing Need & Demand For Services

Yet the Healthcare Commission and Audit Commission have recognized the crucial role specialized health promotion has to play as a part of multidisciplinary public health. This paper briefly describes the needs and demands of health promotion in England and then reports the views of practitioners on the impact of the commissioner provider split of healthcare functions, a process that started in 2005 and is likely to continue under the coalition government.

This paper outlines the impact that the split of commissioning and provider functions has already had on health promotion and describes what may be lost to health improvement by its further ...