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Health secretary backtracks on funding arrangements for specialist services in England after parliamentary pressure
Andrew Lansley has been forced to ditch a controversial plan that would have put the NHS at risk of losing the services of teams of cancer experts who help patients, GPs and hospitals. The health secretary has decided to reprieve England's 28 NHS cancer networks after MPs of all parties, as well as leading charities and the government's own cancer tsar, warned that letting them disappear would damage both patient care and the drive to cut the number of cancer-related deaths.
Lansley changed tack after rejecting for many months concerns about his refusal to guarantee the future of the networks once his NHS reforms began in 2012, a stance that Macmillan Cancer Support described as "absolute madness" that could result in some patients dying earlier.
Until now, Lansley has insisted his plans to reorganise the health service in England meant the proposed new NHS commissioning board, not he, could decide whether the networks should continue or not once GP consortiums took over the role of commissioning care in 2013. The health secretary's diminished role in the new era meant he could not tie the board's hands, said Lansley.
But critics accused him of placing an "ideological" devotion to his NHS blueprint above the need to ensure that health professionals would still be able to call on expert guidance on cancer. GPs in particular were worried they would lose a valuable back-up service on the illness. The 28 networks, composed of teams of up to 15 cancer specialists, are widely admired for their work in helping NHS primary care trusts improve their cancer care, and in working with hospitals to ensure patients get access to the best available drugs and latest forms of surgery. Many senior doctors view them as one of the real success stories of the NHS.
Hamish Meldrum, leader of the British Medical Association, recently told MPs that the networks were a fundamental service of the NHS.
This is the second time Lansley has been forced to rethink his plans, having already abandoned plans to let hospitals compete for patients by offering lower treatment prices. Lansley's NHS plans have given the coalition its biggest political problem. He confirmed the U-turn on Thursday evening in a speech to the Anglia Cancer Network, which covers his South Cambridgeshire constituency. He promised to fund the networks for an extra year, guaranteed their long-term future and praised them as "shining examples" of how different sorts of health professionals should be working together to benefit patients. And he promised to copy them as a way of improving outcomes in other areas of NHS care.
He said: "I am determined that we build more clinical leadership into designing services, bringing together the new clinically-led commissioning consortia with colleagues in specialties across medical, nursing and health professions, to design services that meet quality, choice and outcome objectives. The clinical networks are a clear example of how this way of working delivers better quality. I am pleased to confirm not only that we will fund and support cancer networks in 2012-13, but that the NHS commissioning board will thereafter continue to support strengthened cancer networks, as a means of bringing the clinical expertise and clinical commissioning responsibilities together, continuously to improve outcomes for cancer patients."
Ciarán Devane, Macmillan's chief executive, welcomed the rethink. "This change of mind is great news for cancer patients as it provides important reassurance that their care will not be put at risk by the health reforms. We're very pleased the government has listened to our concerns and recognised the importance of cancer networks in commissioning high-quality cancer services. The government is right to cut bureaucracy but it made no sense to risk losing the valuable specialist knowledge and personnel that cancer networks provide."
Paul Burstow, the health minister with responsibility for cancer, who had urged Lansley to think again, said: "We fully recognise the value of cancer networks to both doctors and patients.
"That's why we took the initial step to fund and support cancer networks until 2013. But we've also listened to the concern that organisations such as Macmillan have expressed about the long-term future of cancer networks. We've listened to those concerns and used the 'pause' in the health and social care bill to go back to the drawing board and guarantee that cancer networks will now be maintained beyond 2013."
John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said: "This is a welcome backtracking to help safeguard the cancer networks. But Andrew Lansley now needs to take the next step and drop the plans for a full-blown market in the NHS – which will put at risk the collaboration at the heart of these networks."