Collective Voice responds to the Government’s 10-year health plan consultation

This week, Collective Voice has responded to the consultation on the Government’s 10-year health plan.  You can read our full submission here, but we thought it would be helpful to outline the key points we made in response to each question.

We outlined several elements that we wanted to see included in the plan:

• Set long-term commitments and funding
• Ensure funding and regulation support the full range of evidence-based options and innovation and research
• Support recruitment, retention and development to ensure the workforce is fit for the future
• Ensure there is appropriate and proportionate outcomes monitoring
• Include alcohol and other drugs as key priorities for improving health
• Acknowledge and support the role of charities in the provision of health and social care
• Understand and respond to people in the wider context of their lives
• Ensure alcohol and other drugs are seen as part of ‘core business’ for the whole system
• Address health inequalities proactively and directly

The consultation then asked about the three key ‘shifts’ the Government has talked about: moving more care from hospitals to communities; making better use of technology in health and care; focusing on preventing sickness, not just treating it.

On shifting care from hospitals to the community, we said that the Government would need to:

• Ensure funding models support this shift
• Ensure technology helps identify opportunities – both for individuals and at a population level – for early intervention and targeted community-based care
• Ensure hospital policies encourage effective, integrated care (we know that continuity of opiate agonist prescribing can be an issue, for example)

On making better use of technology, we noted the need to:

• Ensure existing technology is applied consistently to all setting where helpful – for example most substance use prescribing is still done on paper…
• Ensure there is central leadership and appropriate resourcing locally and nationally to promote accurate data entry and effective analysis
• Ensure central requirements on data are reviewed and updated (has NDTMS kept up with changing priorities, patterns of use and harm, and approaches to support?)
• Central leadership should ensure systems record data items and link with each other effectively, while providing local flexibility to innovate and adapt
• Ensure the public understand what is being done, why, and how it benefits them and the wider population

And on prevention, we said:

• Health is a product and responsibility of whole communities
• Stigma affects screening and identifying people who might need support, and can mean individuals delay seeking out support for themselves
• We need to improve staff awareness of  issues around alcohol and drugs right across the system
• Structures and funding should encourage collaboration and thinking of a person’s whole needs
• Data sharing and joint analysis should be improved

The final section of the consultation asked for any specific policy ideas for change.  Some of those we picked out included:

• Enable electronic prescribing for instalment prescriptions of controlled drugs in community prescribing services
• Ensure the regulatory and funding environment enables the expansion of checking of illegal drugs
• Require key health and social care services to have training, screening and referral pathways for substance use – and monitor delivery of this
• Improve health and social care professionals’ training to include substance use
• Encourage wider cultural change around the use of alcohol and other drugs to reduce stigma and harm

We hope the Government considers all responses carefully, as there are some real opportunities to make a difference for people who are experiencing harm related to use of alcohol or other drugs.