Secretary of State for Health:
At the top is the Secretary of State for Health, the government minister in charge of the Department of health, responsible for the NHS in England and answerable to parliament.
The government allocates funds to the NHS in England via UK taxation. The Secretary of State for Health decides how these funds will be spent and is accountable to parliament for the overall performance of the NHS in England.
There are three Committees within the Government which can summons NHS employees to give evidence to their enquiries:
The Health Committee examines the Department of Health's expenditure, administration and policymaking.
The Public Accounts Committee ensures the NHS is running economically, effectively and efficiently.
The Public Administration Committee scrutinises the Health Service Commissioner's (Ombudsmen) reports.
The Department of Health:
The department of health and the NHS executive are responsible for the strategic planning of the health services as a whole. The DH is responsible for running and improving the NHS, public health and social care in England. The DH provides strategic direction, secures resources, sets national standards and invests in the services.
Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs):
Under the department of health there are 28 strategic health authorities which plan health care for the region they cover. In October 2002, 28 SHAs were created to manage the NHS at local level and act as a link back to the DH. The role of SHA is to support the efforts of the local health service in improving performance; integrating national priorities into local health delivery plans; and resolving any conflicts that cannot be resolved between local NHS organisations. SHAs also monitor the performance of PCTs and ensure that they meet targets.
SHAs help local authorities' Overview and Scrutiny Committees monitor the local health service. Since April 2003, the SHA is obligated to consult the Committee on any major reconfigurations of service, thus gaining a wider perspective of local health economy.
Trusts (Primary care and Secondary care NHS Trusts):
Health services divided between 'primary' and 'secondary' care.
Primary care Trusts: Primary care services include general practioner (GP), Dentist, Pharmacist, Opticians, district nursing and other services. These are provides locally near to where patient live or in patient home. Primary care
The more specialised services are provided in fewer locations which are called secondary care. This includes Hospitals, Ambulances, specialised health services for mental health and learning disabled.
Services are provided by hundreds of NHS organisations called Trust or NHS trust, supply secondary care and primary care trust provides primary care services. Primary care services are responsible for buying almost all of the health care both primary and secondary required by the local populations they serve. They are allocated funds each year by the department of health to do this and they must decide how much to spend on which health care services for the local population.
Diagram2 Primary care and Secondary care Structure
NHS Trusts:
NHS trusts employ he majority of health services. They obtain most of their income via service level agreements with their local PCT on a payment by results basis. Trust that exceeds contractual expectations will receive more funding. However Trust that fail to deliver will have their agreement withdrawn. Trust are largely self-governing but are accountable to SHAs for their performance management. The main types of trusts are as follows:
Acute Trust: there are 176 Acute Trusts in England, which provides medical and surgical care to the local population. They manage one or more hospitals.
Care Trust: were designed to enable close integration between the health and social care sectors. They can be created with local authorities and NHS organisations form partnerships and this will determine the care Trusts role. At present there are 8 Trusts which in mental health and older peoples.
Mental Health Trusts: there are 88 mental health trusts in England, which provides specialist mental health services in hospitals and the local community.
Ambulance Trusts: there are 33 ambulance trusts in England which provide patients with emergency access to health care. In some areas these trust may also be responsible for providing transport to transfer patients to hospital for treatment.
Children's Trust: as part of the Government's 2004 Green Paper Every Child Matters, it was announced that key children's services (health, education, and social services) will be integrated into a single organisation known as a Children's Trust run by the local Government. At present there is 35 children's trust.
Foundation Trusts: in April 2004 NHS Foundation Trusts were created as non-profitmaking entities, owned by members from the local community. Foundation Hospital is not governed by the Secretary of State but must adhere to arrangements made by an independent regulator, who issue the hospital with a license to operate. The independent regulator is accountable to Parliament for the functioning of the NHS Trust and its ability to comply with the license agreement. Foundation hospitals must also adhere to any service level agreements with their local PCT. The foundation trust management board is responsible for the day-to-day running of the hospital, while clinical directorates manage its clinical services. Each trust has an elected board of Governors, who work with the management board to ensure that the hospital is complying with its license and on target to meet its objectives.
The Commission for patient and public involvement in health (CPPIH): is an independent body, sponsored by the DH> it was established I January 2003 to ensure that the public are involved in English health care decisions.
Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs): MCNs are partnerships of healthcare professionals and organisations, involved in the commissioning, planning and provision of a particular health service in a specific geographical area. Their job is to provide quality care by by breaking down the barriers between primary, secondary, tertiary and social care.
State the full title function of each of the following organisations.
What do the initial stand for?
APTUK: Association of Pharmacy Technicians, UK
GPhC : General Pharmaceutical Council
RPSGB : Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
PSNI: Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland
NPA: National Pharmacy Association
PDA: The Pharmacists Defence Association
MHRA: Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
GHP: Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists
NPSA: National Patient Safety Agency
NICE: National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
M5
Discuss changes within the NHS over the 10 years and state how they affect the delivery of pharmacy services. Refer to any relevant legislation and government documents and publications.
PCT provider services restructuring:
When primary care Groups (PCGs) were established in the late 1990s and in the subsequent transition to PCTs, staff providing the services on the ground continued to the NHS employees. The difference with Transforming Community Services Programme is that some of the options for the future provision of services mean that staff providing the services would no longer work with in the NHS.
Since April 2009, PCTs have been required to have separate commissioning and provider arms and to have adopted a contractual relationship with provider organisation. For staff employed by a PCT, this legally prescribed separation of commissioning and provider functions may have an impact on security and employment terms and condition.
Transforming Community Services (TCS):
TCS is a change programme for delivery of primary health care services to help meet the aspirations of the NHS next stage review and new requirements in commissioning health care designed to promote high quality standards of care.
The TCS programme includes a number of initiatives which have been designed to help staff provides high quality evidence-based care, and achieve positive outcomes for the community they serve. These include:
Strengthening clinical skills and leadership
Support for quality and time to care
Embedding new evidence-based child health promotion
Developing evidence-based practice(include research)
Policy analysis and alignment of policy to community practice
A quality frame work for community services
A world class commissioning tool kit for community health services
A national contract for community services
A framework to pilot metrics and currencies and support local development
An assessment of innovative information management and technology.
Agenda for change:
This is guide to the pay, terms and condition for NHS, otherwise known as Agenda for Change.
Agenda for change was implemented in the NHS, across the UK, on 1 December 2004. With pay terms and conditions backdated to 1 October 2004. For members working within the NHS will be effect and also Hospital Pharmacy staff also will effect from agenda for change.
National service frameworks (launched 1998) set national standards and establish performance milestones.
Planning and priorities framework (PPF) outlines priorities that PCTs must achieve. The 2003-2006 priorities have been published by NHS chief executives.
National standards, local action: health and social care standards and planning framework 2005/2006-2007/2008 announced a reduction in the number of national targets NHS provides must achieve, from 62 to 20.
In 2000, the government drew up a concordant between the NHS and private sector, to enable NHS patients to be treated faster via spare healthcare capacity in the private sector.
The health care commission (CHAI) is responsible for the regulation and inspection of the NHS.in 2003, CHAI's role was developed to include the publication of NHS performance rating and indicators for hospital and trusts, based on rating scale of 0 to 3 stars.
Pharmacy staff has to register with General Pharmaceutical Council if they want to work in pharmacy as a technician.
D5
D) Explain the requirement for registration as a pharmacy technician. Discuss the history and the rationale for the introduction of statutory regulation for pharmacy technicians, referring to any relevant legislation or government documents.
Requirements for Registration as a Pharmacy Technician:
A grand parenting period set for pharmacy technician. This means this individual who wants to work in pharmacy and hold a qualification that is recognised and meet the work experience requirements under the transitional arrangements can apply for registration up to 30 June 2011. Before this pharmacy technician do not need to be register for work in pharmacy and pharmacy technician was not insured and was not protected by any professional body.
After this date pharmacy technician will become mandatory, the entry requirements will change and those who have not already applied to register may need to undertake further qualifications and work experience before they can apply to register.
Up to 30 June 2011 person can apply to register with the GphC as a pharmacy technician if they have:
An acceptable UK qualification and
Relevant work experience as a pharmacy technician
Or
An EEA national with an EEA pharmacy technician qualification
Or
If person are an overseas (non-EEA) qualified pharmacist or pharmacy technician and have relevant work experience as a pharmacy technician.
On or after 1 July 2011 person can ONLY apply to register with the GphC as a pharmacy technician if
The person an approved competency based qualification; an approved Knowledge based qualification and has completed a minimum of 2 years relevant work-based experience.
The person are an EEA national with and EEA pharmacy technician qualification
If the person were on the RPSGB's practising register that registration will have been automatically transferred to the GPhC register.
The Royal pharmaceutical society Great Britain was the society for pharmacist registration. This association break down between two 1. General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and 2. Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
GPhC regulatory body who aim to protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and public who use pharmaceutical services in England, Scotland, wales.
RPS is responsible for CPD for pharmacist for training and further career and also advocacy through advocacy work pharmacy can help solve many of the issues with in the NHS such as:
Reducing drug wastage
Helping to prevent people getting ill( and as a result reducing the burden of disease on future generations)
Improving medicines management to reduce hospital admissions
Improving access to medicines ailments schemes which in turn release GP time to deal with more serious problems.
REF:
Office of health economics, the NHS- organisation and structure (Image 1)
http://www.ohe.org/page/knowledge/schools/hc_in_uk/nhs_structure.cfm accessed on 21/11/200
The Structure of the NHS RCGP Information (November 2004)
http://www.rcgp.org.uk/pdf/ISS_INFO_08_NOV04.pdf accessed on 22/11/2010
NHS choices, about the NHS structure
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/nhsstructure.aspx accessed on 22/11/2010
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) Pharmacy technician qualification
http://www.pharmacyregulation.org/aboutus/index.aspx accessed on 22/11/2010
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society Development
http://www.rpharms.com/home/home.asp accessed on 22/11/2010
