Author: Andy Cowper

At the Labour Party’s conference in Manchester, Health Secretary Alan Johnson outlined five priority policy areas for the NHS over the next decade. The latest date Labour can hold a general election is 10 June 2010.

The Department of Health’s head of urgent care told a conference that GP practice-based commissioning needs a “relaunch” to “redefine and reinvigorate” its central role in NHS commissioning. Chris Dowse, Head of Urgent Care at the Department of Health, told the NHS Alliance conference Urgent care at the crossroads: chaos or creativity? that the Department’s view remains that practice-based commissioning (PBC) is “here to stay .. the question is how to relaunch it”.

The influential Kings Fund think-tank has come out in favour of allowing patients to top up their NHS care, describing the current system as “untenable”. The statement has been issued in response to cancer czar Professor Mike Richards’ review of the consequences of additional private drugs for NHS care, due to report in October.

At their party conference in Bournemouth, Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb outlined the party’s latest proposals on health. New directly-elected local health boards (re-named primary care trusts [PCTs]) would be linked into to the Lib Dem proposal for a new local income tax scheme, and thus would be able to reward people for health-promoting behaviour such as taking regular exercise or attending regular medical screenings.

The existing cap on NHS foundation trusts’ private income has been described as “too restrictive by the director of the NHS Confederation’s foundation trust network.