After decades (many decades for the Liberal Democrats!) in Opposition we knew that this new Government would want to set out their agenda quickly and strongly. Tuesday brought Conference speeches from both the Secretaries of State for Health and Work and Pensions – the policies of both departments have a significant impact on people affected by cancer.
Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary, announced “the biggest reform of the welfare system in a generation”. He plans to create one Universal Credit incorporating all existing benefits such as JobSeekers Allowance and the Employment and Support Allowance. We have very little detail of this reform but we will be making sure that decisions makers – Ministers, MPs and civil servants – involved in welfare reform take in to account the needs of people affected by cancer as they design this new system.
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, promised to “transform the NHS”, bringing “real reform”. He talked again of giving doctors control over budgets (the big idea of GP commissioning which Jeremy blogged about yesterday) and of rewarding hospitals and services which care for patients the best, giving them “the freedom to expand and grow”.
This is an interesting point that the Government’s health team seem to be promoting. At a fringe meeting Anne Milton, Public Health Minister, spoke about the need to encourage the NHS to be more innovative questioning why it hasn’t moved faster to use new technologies. She wants to see more people get test results or appointments via text message. Dr Paul Hodgkin, Chief Executive of Patient Opinion, said the NHS is stuck in the 20th century. Hospitals and surgeries still write letters when the rest of the population use emails, texts, facebook and twitter.
Programmes like Channel 4’s ‘Embarrassing Bodies’ show the potential for using digital technology in healthcare. I think this is really exciting, but there is a question for me about how we make sure that ‘hard to reach’ groups aren’t further excluded. If we start putting information about the quality of different services online how can we make sure that people who don’t have access to the internet can get this? Or that the 7 million adults in the UK who can’t read or understand instructions on medicine bottles can access this information too?
The Health Secretary wants to “unleash an information revolution” in health and social care services, to enable patient choice. Macmillan knows that many cancer patients don’t get the right information at the right time in the right way. We have helped to develop a cancer Information Prescription which will mean that people with cancer can get the right information at the right time in the right way and we have been talking to MPs to help them understand how important information is to improving physical and mental health.The Department of Health will be publishing consultations on their information strategy, and on patient choice.
Macmillan will build on our conversations with MPs at all three conferences, and our good relationship with the Department of Health, to make sure the message is loud and clear: people with cancer need the right information at the right time in the right way.
